The Lost Ones
by LisaT
Summary: SJA/DW: What if the SJA Season 1 episode "The Lost Ones" had unfolded without Slitheens or a supercomputer on a power trip? CH 8 up, COMPLETED. For now, heh.
1. Chapter 1

_**This is the first part of what will be a three part story. Spoilers for all of Season 1 of SJA with references to NewWho as well. Crossposted on lj and I may put it on Teaspoon also.  
**_

_**Review, please. All feedback and concrit welcome. **_

**Summary: What if _The Lost Boy_ had unfolded differently?**

It was a bright Saturday morning and Maria Jackson and her dad, Alan, were getting ready to sit down to their usual weekend brunch of toast, beans and poached egg. The news was playing in the background, but Maria paid relatively little heed to it until it started talking about a missing boy named Ashley Stafford. A missing boy who looked identical to her neighbour and best friend Luke Smith.

Maria was just about to comment on this when her father suddenly leaned forward and peered through the window over the sink. "There's something going on across the road," he said. "At Sarah Jane's. Police cars and everything."

She swallowed the huge lump of dread that was choking her. "Look at the news, Dad."

"But -"

"Look at the news. Someone from round here must have seen and reported Luke." Maria slammed her cup down and circled around the table to stand by her dad, who'd turned the TV up and was watching with a gravity that made Maria feel all shaky inside. He'd been right about the police, she noted.

"I thought you said that Luke wasn't completely human, that he'd been grown by those aliens," Alan said as a photo of the boy-who-looked-like-Luke-but-wasn't appeared on screen again.

"He isn't," Maria said, fiercely. She started walking towards the front door. She had to get across the road and find out what was going on. She heard her dad call her back, but she ignored him. Her feet began to move faster, and faster so that she wasn't exactly walking but wasn't running either ... there were too many people, she thought, even though Sarah Jane's drive was bigger than any other drive on Bannerman Road. Through them she could see Sarah Jane and Luke.

"Miss, you can't go in there," said a small, blonde policewoman, abruptly blocking her view.

"This is all a mistake," Maria said, trying to stay calm. "You can't take Luke away."

The people Maria had seen on telly, the ones who'd cried and said they were Luke - Ashley's - mum and dad and would Ashley please, _please_ come home, shoved through. "His name isn't Luke, it's Ashley," the woman hissed, "and we're taking him home, today. Away from that evil woman."

"Sarah Jane isn't evil!" Maria shouted as all the hustle and bustle around her seemed to pause. She winced; that sounded so much louder than intended.

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Were you in on it too?" she asked. Maria thought she looked unhinged and shrank back. She caught sight of a gap in the crowd and surged forward, towards Sarah Jane and Luke, and away from the hands that pulled and grasped at her.

Her friend hardly even acknowledged her presence and Maria grabbed her arm. "Tell them, tell them it's all a mistake," as the people who thought they were Luke's parents managed to get past the police. The woman, her mascara streaking in black tear tracks down her face, pulled a reluctant Luke into her arms.

"See," Maria hissed desperately in the older woman's ear, "he doesn't even know who they are."

Sarah Jane looked at her. "They're his parents," she said in the polite, toneless voice Maria remembered from her first encounters with her. "They have every right to take Luke - Ashley. It was my mistake for not checking it more thoroughly." Her eyes went to Luke, who was being herded away and Maria felt tears come to her own eyes as she saw the numb expression on the other teenager's face.

The small crowd continued to heckle at Sarah Jane - and Maria was horrified to spy her own mother amongst them, towards the very back - but the two burly policemen urged them on their way and the drive of 13 Bannerman Road began to gradually clear.

The small blonde policewoman came forward again. She laid a peremptory hand on Sarah Jane's arm, and Maria tightened her own grip. "What are you doing?"

The policewoman glared. "We need to ask Miss Smith some questions. Let her go!"

"No!" Maria knew that tears were running down her face, but she didn't care. "You can't!"

She felt a touch on her shoulder and her mother was standing there, with an expression that Maria could not define. "Let the police do their work, love," Chrissie Jackson said. "Let Mary Jane go."

Sarah Jane looked at Maria's mum and then at Maria, and for a fraction of time she smiled in the old way. "It'll be all right, Maria, you'll see," she said softly as she detached herself from Maria's hands.

"Honestly, how you can say that, after what you've done!" Chrissie expostulated. "I always knew you were a loony, Sarah Jane Smith, and this just proves it. You're not safe to be around kids!"

Maria protested, but Sarah Jane seemed almost unmoved. "Yes, Mrs Jackson. No responsibilities, no ties. It's much better that way. I'll get more done without children slowing me down."

"Sarah Jane!"

The older woman glanced at her again. "I told you when we first met, Maria. My life is dangerous. It's better if you stay away," and with that she allowed herself to be led towards the police car without a backward glance.

Maria wiped her face and then looked around for Luke; there he was, watching with an anguished expression as his mother - the only mother he knew or remembered - was driven away. His eyes met Maria's, and she saw him try to wrench himself from the Staffords ... but his 'father' gripped him tightly as he finished talking to the C.I.D.

"Let's go home," Maria heard Mrs Stafford say, and again she had to watch as a friend drove away. A sob escaped her and she felt a solid, warm arm go about her and pull her close.

"I'm so sorry," Alan whispered into her hair, and she sobbed harder as her newly established world crumbled about her.

"I'm not! She got what she deserved, that one."

"Chrissie!" Maria heard her father hiss. Then a pause. "Christina, was it you?" Maria lifted her head to glance at her mother and was robbed of breath at the look on her mum's face.

_Triumph_, that's what it was.

"It was you, wasn't it, Mum? You phoned the police and told them Sarah Jane had that Ashley person!"

"I did. Good thing too, if you ask me."

Without a word, Maria pulled away from her parents and ran back inside, up to her room. As quickly as she could, she pulled off her pajamas and jumped into her jeans and top before running out again. Bannerman Road was the last place she wanted to be just now.

Maria sat on the swing in the deserted park and used her feet to swing gently, back and forwards and back again. She'd felt slightly guilty for running off as she had done, and had sent a text to her dad to let him know she was safe and would be back. Then she'd gone round to Clyde's, knowing that Luke's best mate (and hers) would understand and and sympathise with the total wrongness of the morning's events. Her dad thought that Sarah Jane had been careless, she could see. Even though he knew about the aliens, and about Luke's origins, it was plain now that he simply believed that the boy had somehow lost his memory.

Only he hadn't, he couldn't have.

But Clyde had been out. Gone to football training, his mum had said. Unwilling to return home, Maria had headed here, to the park on the off chance she'd get to use the swings for some thinking time. _Weird there's no kids about_, she thought, but didn't care enough to give the matter further consideration.

Back and forwards she swung, the movement of the air caressing her hair and soothing her, a little.

She wrinkled her brow and thought carefully about what she knew of Luke's 'birth'. Synthesised from DNA taken from several thousand people. Grown to be the perfect human being, an archetype who could help the Bane conquer Earth. Only it hadn't worked out that way. Sarah Jane and Maria had intervened, and they'd found themselves landed with a boy with the body of a teenager, the brain of a genius, and the absolute innocence of a newborn baby.

Her phone beeped. It was a message from Clyde. He couldn't come now, he said, but he'd come as soon as he could. Not to worry. It was all a mistake and they'd sort it out, just as they always did.

Maria looked gloomily at the line of text. It would be great if they could sort it, but she had a horrible sinking feeling that Sarah Jane wouldn't co-operate, and there was relatively little they could do without her. Her phoned beeped again.

Clyde. _What does Mr Smith say?_

Maria stiffened. Events had moved at such a pace she doubted that anyone had time to ask the alien supercomputer in Sarah Jane's attic for an opinion. Or a contribution, rather. Mr Smith could do DNA scans, Maria remembered, and, what was more, he could tap into the records held on every computer on the planet, never to mention those of passing alien vessels. She jumped off the swing and ran, feeling better by the minute. She had work to do.

"Mr Smith, I need you," Maria gasped as well as she could through her attempts to draw breath. The run from the park and then up three flights of stairs was enough to tax anyone, and she'd been so excited she'd forgotten to use the breathe-and-run technique Sarah Jane had shown her.

The computer emerged with its customary (and irritating) fanfare. "Maria. Does Sarah Jane know you are here?"

Maria carefully moved a heap of random wires and bits of metal out of the way and sat on a table. "No," she said truthfully. "Sarah Jane's in real trouble, Mr Smith, and so's Luke. The police have taken them away."

"Hmmm," said the computer, sounding eerily human as it sometimes did. "Yes; I am aware of what has occurred. Sarah Jane has been accused of abducting Ashley Stafford, who went missing six months ago. It is assumed that the boy has lost his memory."

"That's it," Maria agreed. "Only it can't be, it just _can't_. Luke was created by the Bane. He's really only six months old!" She played with the end of her dark braid as a thought occurred to her. "Do you have a record of Luke's DNA?"

"Of course," the computer responded, sounding almost offended. "It was the first thing Sarah Jane did when she decided to adopt the boy."

She leaned forward in her eagerness. "How does Luke's DNA compare to a normal human's?"

Mr Smith made whirring and grinding sounds, and Maria found herself wondering what kind of processor he had, to make a noise like that. _Dad would say he needs a new fan_, she thought absently as she nibbled the ends of her hair.

The door burst open and Clyde erupted into the attic, looking as out of breath as Maria had been some minutes earlier.

"Any luck?" he panted as he collapsed beside her, his sports bag dropping on the wooden floor with a heavy _thump_.

"I told Mr Smith to scan Luke's DNA to see if it's different from ours," she told him tensely.

Clyde nodded. "Good thinking. Don't think Sarah Jane herself could have done better."

Maria managed to give him a shaky grin. "It was your idea in the first place, to come and talk to Mr Smith."

Clyde's teeth gleamed whitely. "Yeah, 'cos I'm the real brain of this outfit, y'know?"

"I have the results of the scan," Mr Smith announced, rather jerkily, and the two teenagers fell quiet.

"Well?" Clyde prompted when nothing more was forthcoming.

The supercomputer whirred again, and Maria realised that she was biting her nails. _Please don't crash, Mr Smith, please don't..._

"Luke ... Smith ... DNA... scan ... is .... human," stuttered Mr Smith, much to the disappointment of the teenagers. "However ... there ... are ... some.... anomalies.."

Maria found that she and Clyde were gripping each other.

"There's something wrong with him!" Clyde said, his dark eyes wide.

"Mr Smith, please don't go," Maria begged. "Tell us more about the anomalies. Is Luke's DNA the same as Ashley Stafford's?"

"They ... are ... not ... the ... same ... because ..." The viewscreen went black and all the lights on the console went out.

Maria and Clyde watched in horror. Now they were on their own, and they'd apparently killed Mr Smith.

"Sarah Jane is gonna be _so_ ticked off," Clyde breathed into the suddenly dark and silent attic.

"You got that right at least," said a cool voice behind them. "Would one of you care to explain what is going on?"

"...so you see, it's really a mistake. Luke and Ashley must be two different people," Maria insisted after telling Sarah Jane the whole story. "Mr Smith said that their DNA wasn't exactly the same, so they must be, mustn't they?"

Clyde scowled. "Those people who took Luke have got to be aliens. We need to get him back, Sarah Jane! Who knows what they're doing to him?"

Sarah Jane sighed. "I don't think they were aliens at all, Clyde. They were just two very worried and relieved parents."

She turned her head away from them, towards the window, and as the light fell on cruelly on her face Maria thought for the first time that their friend looked old. She moved to kneel beside her. "But you won't let it go, will you? We'll check it out?"

Sarah Jane glanced at her. "Of course I will. If there's any chance at all ..." Restlessly, she moved away from the big red leather sofa where they were sitting and began to roam the attic, picking objects up and then putting them down again. She turned to face the teenagers. "I don't want you involved," she said urgently. "This could be dangerous, and without Mr Smith I'll have to do more hands-on investigation than usual. I can't risk you two as well."

Maria's chin went up. "You can't get rid of us that easily, can she, Clyde?"

"No chance! You're stuck with us, Sarah Jane."

"Besides, we care about Luke as much as you do," Maria added staunchly. Sarah Jane looked unsure. "Please?" Maria whispered.

The older woman looked at them for what seemed like a long time. "You're such kids, both of you," she said, very gently.

"We've been through loads," Clyde reminded her. "Maria's done the Bane and that creepy Trickster guy, and we've both done Slitheen and Gorgons. We're not helpless."

"Oh!" Sarah Jane opened her arms and without a pause, Maria and Clyde ran straight into them. They clung to each other for a long moment until Sarah Jane pulled back and smiled at them. "Together, then?"

"Yes!" Clyde high-fived Maria, who found herself laughing with relief.

"Together," Maria agreed, giving Sarah Jane another hug.

When they separated, Sarah Jane became brisk. "First, we need to find out what's gone wrong with Mr Smith." She frowned in the direction of the computer. "Perhaps your dad would be willing to help, Maria?"

Maria's smile faltered. "I don't know," she admitted. "He doesn't think you abducted Luke, or anything," she added hastily when Sarah Jane's face became very still. "I think he'll accept this explanation, 'specially since he knows the rest of it. And as long as we don't let on to my mum," she finished ruefully.

Sarah Jane accepted this with a nod. "All right then, if you could do that - possibly this evening?" She glanced at Mr Smith again. "I'm in rather a hurry to get him up and running. Otherwise, we need to be sure that Ashley and Luke really are two different people."

"Could Luke be a clone of Ashley?" Clyde suggested.

Sarah Jane stared at him. "That would explain some things, but the Bane _grew_ Luke."

Maria's mind was racing. "Maybe they didn't, literally. Maybe they cloned Ashley, like - like taking a plaster cast of something, and then filled it in."

Clyde gave a shout of laughter. "It sounds like he was made at Cadbury's. You know, when they make all the same chocolate cases and then fill them differently?"

"H'mm." Sarah Jane eyed them. "Those are possibilities, I agree. The question is, how do we test our hypothesis?"

"Don't talk like a Maths teacher," Maria heard Clyde grumble under his breath. "I get enough of that at school."

Sarah Jane had been playing with her watch, lifting the flap up and down again. Suddenly, she looked at it as if seeing it properly for the first time. "I wonder. Clyde, come here."

"What? Why?"

"I want to scan you."

"Heh." Clyde looked nervous. "I'm totally human, I tell you."

"Sometimes I'm not sure of that," Maria quipped, putting her hand on his shoulder and propelling him over to where Sarah Jane stood. "Here's your victim."

Once they'd determined that Sarah Jane's watch was just as capable of giving detailed scans on humans as it was on any other race in the galaxy, and that there was actually a handy little mini-USB port that allowed it to be linked up to an ordinary computer, they started to feel more confident.

Sarah Jane ordered Clyde to run into Luke's bedroom and grab Luke's comb. He grimaced, but obeyed, and then watched with Maria as Sarah Jane fed the resulting scan into her PC.

"It's taking a long time," Maria said when after a few minutes they were still waiting.

Sarah Jane gave her an amused look over the top of her thick rimmed reading glasses. "This is a standard twenty first century Earth computer, Maria. We're spoilt by Mr Smith. This box would be considered high end by almost anyone else. There's a lot of data to process."

The computer beeped and they leaned closer to see. "What does it mean?" Clyde complained as lines and lines of plain text scrolled. "Are we expected to read all that?"

This time he was the recipient of the amused-over-the-glasses look. "I wouldn't expect you to exert your brain to _that _degree, Clyde," Sarah Jane said drily while Maria grinned. "Seriously, no, you aren't. If you look closer you'll see that the text is not in a standard word processor. There's options. See." She moved the cursor so that it clicked on an icon in the toolbar with a little stick person.

Instantly, the lines and lines of text reduced to a summary. Maria squealed. "'Human DNA: 99.999%. Genetic Markers: 99%. Age Drift: 5%.'" She frowned. "Does that make any sense to you?"

Sarah Jane folded her arms. "It means that Luke is mostly, but not entirely human. The medical equipment we have at the moment would register him as completely human, however, but my watch uses technology from a millennia's time." Her lips compressed. "That's why I've always been so keen to keep Luke away from Torchwood or UNIT. They have this technology too, or very close to it."

Clyde heaved a gusty sigh. "Yeah, well, let's get to the point. If Luke's not completely human, he definitely can't be this Ashley guy, can he?"

Sarah Jane glanced from him to Maria. "No," she said slowly. "I suppose not."

"Could we find out if Luke shares any DNA with Ashley Stafford? To see if he's a clone?"

"We could," Sarah Jane said, "but we'd really need Mr Smith for that. Maria, could you go and get your dad?"

Despite working until well after midnight, and all of Sunday, they had no luck in reviving Mr Smith. Consequently, they had to come up with an alternative, but it took them several days to settle on one that they thought would work. Visits (by Maria and Clyde) to Luke's new 'home' came to nothing: they were unceremoniously shown the door on both occasions. Then Maria remembered that a cousin of her dad's lived in the same suburb, and there was a good chance that his kids would be going to the same school as Luke, and she asked them to keep an eye on him.

"He's a sweet, geeky boy who really isn't on Planet Earth most of the time," she explained. "Just watch out for him and don't let the bullies get him. Please?" Luckily, the cousins had agreed, but it would be some days yet before Maria could contact them. At the very least, her cousins would be able to tell her if the new Ashley Stafford resembled the old.

Meanwhile, Sarah Jane was clearly torn between mingled relief and anxiety: relief that at least Luke was safe, and she knew where he was, relief that she hadn't inadvertently kidnapped someone else's son, and anxiety for the real Ashley Stafford, who'd been missing now for nearly seven months.

"Perhaps it was the Bane," she said a few evenings later to Maria as they worked together repairing the neverending pile of alien junk that always seemed to accumulate in the attic. "If you're right, they cloned that poor boy, doing who knows what to him in the process, and then afterwards ..." She shrugged.

Maria shuddered. "You think they killed him, don't you?"

Sarah Jane bit her lip. "You've met them. They were ruthless. I think we have to admit it is at least a possibility."

Maria pushed her chair back and stood up. "We need to find out. Come on. Let's go back to the factory. We didn't completely explode it," she added as Sarah Jane looked dubious.

"It's dark," the older woman pointed out.

Maria grinned. "So? Fewer people to get in our way."

"I'm too old to be clambering around shambolic factory units in the dark," Sarah Jane complained as she pushed back her own chair. "And if your mother ever finds out, Sontaran torture is nothing to what she'll come up with."

"You were just as old two years ago and that didn't stop you going to investigate Deffrey Vale, or any of the stuff we've done in the past year," Maria told her with the ruthless severity of youth. "That's just a cop out."

"And they say _I'm_ a bad influence," Maria heard Sarah Jane mutter to herself under her breath. "Maria, stop a minute." She turned the girl to face her. "Think this through. We've just agreed that there's a good possibility that _if_ the Bane kidnapped Ashley Stafford, and _if_ he was used as the basis for Luke .... we could well find a dead body. A _very_ dead body. Are you prepared for that?"

Maria felt her stomach turn, but she met Sarah Jane's gaze squarely. "I hate the idea, but if that's what it takes..." She shrugged. Sarah Jane gave her a smile that was so full of pride that Maria felt a lump come into her throat. When was the last time her own mother had looked at her like that? She smiled back, weakly, but felt somehow strengthened. Dead bodies or not, this was not going to be a pleasure trip.

"I'm starting to realise why you didn't think this was such a good idea," Maria hissed to Sarah Jane as she fell over yet another pile of breeze blocks. They'd entered through the side of the factory that remained more or less intact, and had actually managed to get some light besides that cast by Sarah Jane's huge industry-standard torch. All the same, it still couldn't be described as bright.

"Well, we're here now," Sarah Jane said absently, her attention focused on her watch. She looked up and smiled. "We're in luck. My watch has built in GPS; it scans wherever I am and downloads maps as appropriate. According to this, we're in the block that held Mrs Wormwood's office and the suite where Luke was 'grown'. Come on, it's this way!"

"Is there any way I could get one of those?" Maria asked hopefully, running after her mentor.

"Not a chance, unless you meet the Doctor," Sarah Jane threw back over her shoulder as she began to run up the stairs. "However, I'll check at home. We might be able to cobble something together."

"Excellent!"

They ran together in silence, the atmosphere of a deserted, derelict building closing in around them. Now and then they could hear the sound of some piece of equipment that still functioned, and they'd stop for a moment, their hearts thumping hard.

"It's in here," Sarah Jane panted at last after they'd been running for what seemed like forever. She gave the door a gentle push, and then jumped back in surprise as it moved sideways, allowing them to enter.

"Clyde'd love this," Maria said appreciatively as she took in the room, large and spacious and modern. "Alien or not, at least the Bane had taste."

"In more way than one," Sarah Jane returned grimly as she started scanning. "They came to Earth to seek a food source, remember? And they got involved in the food industry. Food's as much about packaging and propaganda as it is about anything else these days, and the Bane were clever enough to use it."

Maria shuddered as she thought how close the Bane had come to taking over the Earth. Even her father had been affected by Bubbleshock, and she still had nightmares about both her parents chasing her around the house, intoning 'Drink it!' in a manner that reminded her of the first _Mummy_ movie. She moved around the desk to check the drawers, but as might have been expected from an alien species, there was little sign of hard paperwork.

"Didn't you say there were Slitheens in Downing Street a couple of years ago?" she asked suddenly as she closed the last drawer.

"What about it?" Sarah Jane called from the other side of the room.

"There must still be some in the government," Maria returned seriously, "'cos aliens are too advanced for pen and paper, aren't they, and the government's always going about being paperless. They keep telling us about it in school."

Sarah Jane laughed. "That's an interesting explanation for the green-fever that's been running rampant in politics for the past twenty years. I'll have to look into it some time. In the meantime, could you turn the computer on and see what you can get?"

Maria obeyed, and being a computer technician's daughter, had no trouble working out how to get to the desktop. "What am I looking for?"

Sarah Jane straightened and snapped her watch shut with a sigh. "I don't know. Anything to do with creating an archetype, I suppose." She pronounced the word with considerable distaste.

"Didn't you get anything?" Maria asked anxiously as her friend came to stand beside her.

"Nothing, except a piece of random alien trace that could mean anything."

"What about scanning for Luke?" Maria suggested. "I mean, it'll tell you the degree of match, wouldn't it, so you'd know if either Luke or Ashley were here."

Sarah Jane raised her eyebrows but did as Maria said. In another moment she was racing across the room, and Maria wasted no time in following her.

"What is it? Sarah Jane!"

"You were right," Sarah Jane called back in between breaths. "Ashley was here, he must have been. The scan says a close but not exact match for Luke … that'd be right, I think, if Luke was based on Ashley. If only he's still here…"

Down, down they went, through rooms so packed with technology that Maria wanted to stop and stare, even after her exposure to the contents of Sarah Jane's attic. Then, at last, they came to a room with a high white bed surrounded by what looked like hospital equipment. A suspended screen on one side of the room had lines of alien text on it that neither Sarah Jane nor Maria could read. Not that they needed to; their breaths caught as they realised that this was Luke's 'birthplace', the room were he'd been developed and grown.

Sarah Jane scanned again, and her watch beeped more manically than Maria had ever heard. She leaned closer so that she could see the contents of the tiny screen. "What does it say?"

"It's picking up a number of traces," Sarah Jane told her with burning eyes. "Humans including one who's a near genetic match for Luke; Luke himself, the Bane … and something else."

Maria's eyes widened as she took in the implications, but she managed to remain focused on her task: to discover what had happened to Ashley Stafford. Cautiously, she steeled herself to push open the doors of the various ante-rooms, and exhaled in relief as each room smelled stale and dusty, but nothing more. Feeling braver, she began to turn lights on … and then gave vent to an exclamation that brought Sarah Jane running in to her.

"What's wrong?" the older woman asked anxiously.

Maria beamed. "Ashley Stafford may not be here now, but he was. Look!" She held out the school sweater she held. "It's labelled with his name."

"God bless school paranoia," Sarah Jane murmured as she looked at the label for herself. "Excellent work, Maria." She scanned the jumper and smiled broadly. "And now we have something Ashley Stafford actually wore. Scanning for his DNA now…" She glanced up and caught Maria's eye.

"Well?" Maria demanded, shifting from one foot to the other.

"That's the problem with young people nowadays," Sarah Jane commented, her eyes still fixed on the watch display. "No patience. Ah!" She pulled Maria into a quick but fervent hug. "You wonderful, brilliant, brave girl!"

Maria was sure her cheeks would crack from smiling. "They're different, aren't they? Luke and Ashley?"

"They are indeed. Ashley is Ashley and Luke is _my_ son. And I'm damn well going to get him back – get them both back - come hell or high water."

"But how?" Maria whispered and her eyes went back to the jumper Sarah Jane still held.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**_I lied. This is part two of four, or possibly five. If you read, please review. All comments welcome. Still no Doctor, but have patience and he will appear.... _**

* * *

"I think that's it," Sarah Jane said breathlessly as she took Clyde's proffered hand and rose to her feet. She and the kids had been crawling around the bowels of Mr Smith, attempting to carefully remove the alien crystal at the computer's heart.

As Sarah Jane had explained earlier, when she'd first acquired the mysterious rock from a geologist friend, she'd inadvertently allowed it to connect itself to her laptop, and it had been then that she'd realised the crystal's astonishing abilities. Not that these were surprising given that it had started life as a memory cell on an alien vessel. What had happened once could happen again, and they hoped that they'd be able to revive Mr Smith somewhat by repeating the earlier experience.

Carefully, Sarah Jane placed the glowing white crystal beside her computer, and they waited with baited breath. Sure enough, a moment later, reams of unfamiliar characters began to scroll across the screen ... and they watched as the computer proceeded to download an English dictionary and then the screen resolved itself into something they could read.

Sarah Jane exhaled a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. "It's worked," she breathed. "That's what I saw the first time I did this." Relief weakened her knees and she sat down hard.

"Wicked!" Clyde whooped, throwing his arms around Maria, and the two teenagers twirled about the attic for a moment before coming to a stop next to Sarah Jane.

"Are you going to feed in the data from the factory?" Maria asked from where she was leaning against the bookcase.

Sarah Jane ignored Clyde's frown. He was still annoyed at having missed their trip. "I am. I'm hoping that Mr Smith - or what's left of him - will be able to identify that alien trace. Remember?"

Maria nodded. "Yep. You said you could pick up us, Luke, Ashley, the Bane, and something else," she counted on her fingers. "And there was that other trace you mentioned, when we were in Luke's incubator thing."

"_Incubator_?" Clyde repeated incredulously.

"It's as accurate a term as any," Sarah Jane told him as she attached her watch's mini-usb port to her computer. "Now let's see." She pressed a key and Maria and Clyde came to stand on either side of her, all three of them intently focused on the monitor as the progress bar stained blue in its progression from zero to one hundred percent.

Sarah Jane forced herself to relax as the blue bar started moving past ninety. _Let it complete_, she begged silently. _Let us find out what's going on _.... "Oh, _damn_!" An error message appeared on screen, and she reached for her glasses, but Maria forestalled her.

"It says that there's 'insufficient resources to complete this task'. What does that mean?"

Sarah Jane groaned. "It means that Mr Smith is unable to fully analyse the data since the resources of this computer can't keep up. There's only so much he can do outside his own rig." She turned to look at her young friends and gave them a rueful smile. "I'm sorry, you two. It looks like we haven't got what we wanted after all."

Clyde and Maria looked as disappointed as she felt. "What do we do now?" Clyde asked.

She smiled again and rubbed her eyes, realising that the loss of the anticipation-fuelled adrenalin around her body had left her exhausted. A glance at the clock revealed the reason: it was nearly ten. "I think I'll need to sleep on that one, Clyde, and so should you two. Look at the time! I'm sure Carla and Alan are wondering what's keeping you."

"Aw, it's still early," Clyde protested, clearly trying to be nonchalant. "My mum knows I'm here. She won't worry."

Sarah Jane saw that Maria's dark eyes were fixed on her face. "Same here. I did all my homework before coming over this afternoon, and Dad lets me stay up til eleven on school nights now that I'm nearly fifteen."

She shook her head at them and put an arm around both of their shoulders. "I don't think so. You both have school tomorrow, and I know that when Luke -" her voice faltered and then strengthened "-when Luke was here, I wouldn't have been happy with him running around at this hour either."

"We don't want to leave you alone in this big house," Maria said wistfully.

Sarah Jane smiled at her as she pushed the children towards the attic stairs. "I'm a big girl, you know," she said mildly. "I lived alone for a long time before Luke came, and I can manage until we get him home again."

Clyde, halfway down the narrow stairs, turned. She could faintly see his beaming smile in the half-darkness. "You really think we can get him back?"

She pushed aside her fears and misgivings - they were for herself alone, and not for these children - and gave him smile for smile. "When have you ever known me to give up? Of course we'll get him back. Now, go! I'll see you both tomorrow!"

For once, they obeyed without further argument - Clyde with a friendly pat on the shoulder, and Maria with her usual hug. Sarah Jane stood at the top of the landing and watched them go, still chatting. They closed the front door behind them, and the heavy wood cut them off with stunning suddenness. She shivered in the newborn silence and wrapped her arms around herself, even though the house was warm. Loneliness hovered chill at her shoulder, as it had done for many long years ... She shook herself and turned resolutely back up the stairs towards the attic. She'd told the computer to print out what it could, and she could go and read for a while. She could do that much at least.

Sarah Jane opened her eyes, her heart thumping in her chest so hard that it hurt. Nor was it the only thing, she realised as she tried to move. She'd fallen asleep in her red velvet chaise longue, her glasses slipping down her nose and papers scattered everywhere. Every muscle ached and she was still confused: something had wakened her, but she wasn't sure -

_Bang_. _Thump_. Faintly heard voices - angry voices! She smoothed her hair and removed her glasses, and then stood, wincing as her body complained. The banging continued, and she forced herself to move faster, to get down the stairs.

"We know you're in there, you old bitch!" someone screamed through her letterbox. "Let us in or we're calling the police!"

Frowning, Sarah Jane ran (she'd loosened up a bit) down the remaining stairs and checked the peephole, but she could not make out faces in the rapid movements behind the distorted glass. The door rattled.

"Open up!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she muttered, undoing the snip but keeping the chain on. Cautiously, she opened the door slightly and her heart sank. It was Luke's new 'parents' - and she'd thought he was safe...

She only had enough time to say their names when Mr Stafford launched his full weight against the door. The chain was new - it had been replaced after the Bane - but it wasn't strong enough to stand against nearly fourteen stone of enraged man, and Sarah Jane stepped out of the way just in time as the door flew open.

She gasped and took an involuntary step back as the Staffords burst into her home.

"Where is he?" Mrs Stafford screamed into her face, spittle going into Sarah Jane's eyes. She blinked and found herself wishing she'd kept her glasses on. "What have you done with him? You got him back didn't you..."

"I'm sorry," she began, trying to keep her voice firm and even whilst a cry of _Luke_, _Luke_, _Luke,_ screamed in her head. "Perhaps if you calm down-"

"Calm down? _CALM DOWN_?! I'll show you calm down when you've stolen my son _again_!" Mrs Stafford threw herself onto the shorter woman and Sarah Jane, taken by surprise, found herself trying to protect her face, trying to hunch herself up as the other woman punched and pulled and kicked... _I should have paid more attention to those Venusian Aikido lessons_, she thought dimly.

"Stop it!" someone screamed after what felt like hours but was probably only a matter of minutes or even seconds. The shouting became quieter. Male voices talked. They sounded a long way away.

A hand touched her shoulder and she flinched. "Sarah Jane?"

She realised that the hand was small and gentle. "Sarah Jane, it's me. Maria."

Gradually, Sarah Jane uncurled herself and opened her eyes to look into the worried face of her neighbour and friend. "Maria," she tried.

"Are you OK? Do I need to phone an ambulance?"

"I'll be fine," she managed. "It's just a few bruises."

Maria looked dubious. "Are you sure? I mean -"

"I said I'll be fine!" There, that sounded stronger. "You could help me up, though." She was more grateful than she could say for the young arms that supported her as she got to her feet and began to move towards the front porch. Maria halted, obviously realising Sarah Jane's intent.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to talk to them," Sarah Jane said.

"But-"

"Maria. They're distraught. She didn't know what she was doing." She swallowed. "Something's happened to Luke. I need to find out what." The girl whitened a little, but she made no further protest except to grip Sarah Jane's arm a little harder.

"..he's not here," Alan Jackson was saying firmly to Mr Stafford. Sarah Jane was glad to see that Stafford had a good hold on his wife.

"Has something happened to Lu - Ashley?" she asked, cutting across the men's argument.

They swung to face her. "Your ... friend.... here says you haven't seen my son since we took him last week," Mr Stafford said. He had better control than his wife, but Sarah Jane could see how his hands trembled on the woman's shoulders. "That had better be the truth. If I find you've been hiding him..." He dropped his hands from Mrs Stafford and took a step forward. Alan Jackson intercepted him.

"She's telling the truth," he said evenly. "I suggest you leave now before I call the police and have you charged with assault."

"Where is Luke?" Maria demanded.

"_Ashley_ is gone," Mrs Stafford flung back at her, her voice shredded from screaming and crying. "We woke up this morning and he was just _gone_..."

"Couldn't he have gone to school early?" Alan suggested. Sarah Jane had never seen his brown eyes look so cold.

"Like, Breakfast Club, maybe?" Maria supplied with a touch of sarcasm.

Mr Stafford glared at her. "Hammersmith Comp doesn't do that anymore, Little Miss Know-It-All," he spat between clenched teeth.

Sarah Jane took a deep, careful breath, steeling herself to leave the shelter of Maria's willing support. "Did he leave a note?" Luke, her careful, considerate Luke, would never deliberately or knowingly hurt or worry others.

The eyes of both Staffords fixed themselves on her, and Sarah Jane was ... relieved ... to see that they both looked a little shamefaced as she approached them. "No," Mrs Stafford admitted, refusing to meet her eyes.

She moved closer still, even though the effort made her entire body tense. "I'm a freelance journalist. If you'll permit it, I'd like to investigate Ashley's disappearance."

The Staffords appeared doubtful, and Sarah Jane was preparing for their refusal - not that it would matter in the long run, really - when Maria stepped forward, triumph in her eyes and a piece of paper she'd evidently had in her pocket, judging from its scrunched appearance. "I'd let her, if I were you. Luke - Ashley - isn't the only one to go missing. One of my cousins goes to Hammersmith Comp, and she says that other kids, bright kids, kids like Ashley - have disappeared. Sarah Jane has experience at this sort of stuff. If anyone can find your son, it's her."

_Heaping coals of fire with a vengeance_, Sarah Jane thought whilst she hid her surprise and alarm at the girl's words. "I'd really like your permission. I'll be investigating these other disappearances anyway, but this way I'd keep you in the loop, as it were."

"You'd tell us if you find anything?" Mrs Stafford sounded rather pathetic, and Sarah Jane felt a wave of genuine pity wash over her. This woman had lost her son, seemingly found him again after six months of hell, only to lose him once more... No wonder she appeared slightly unhinged.

"Yes. Leave me your details and I'll let you know anything relevant I uncover."

Husband and wife exchanged a glance. "All right. But we expect to be kept informed," Mr Stafford said.

Sarah Jane wondered if she was the only one to hear the silent threat, but she nodded. Stafford whipped his wallet out of his trouser back pocket, extracted a business card, and handed it over. She inclined her head in the only kind of acknowledgement she could bring herself to offer. Without a further word, the two turned and walked away.

Alan Jackson looked at her. "I'm still prepared to phone the police," he said grimly, his eyes travelling down her body. "Do you need a doctor?"

Sarah smiled, hoping it was reassuring. "Thanks, Alan, but no. I'll be fine. I've had worse."

"If you're sure."

"I'm sure." She looked at Maria. "Aren't you going to be late?"

The girl rolled her eyes while her father relaxed and grinned. "If you really think I'm going to school now, Sarah Jane..."

"Oh, you couldn't miss a day because of me. I won't let you."

"You'll have to," Maria said bluntly, "because I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying with you _all day _and you can't stop me!"

Sarah Jane raised her eyebrows at Alan, and he shrugged. "Will of iron, this one. Once she's made up her mind there's no changing it. Besides, I can't help thinking she's right. You've had a bit of a beating, and if you won't call a doctor or go to A&E, you shouldn't be alone. I can't stay - I've to leave at half past nine to go to a meeting. It won't hurt her to miss a day for once."

Maria came to thread her arm through the older woman's, with due care for bruises. "Come on. You might as well make the best of it. Let's go and have a drink."

"Strictly tea or coffee for you, young lady," her father said. "However, a nip of something stronger would probably be a good idea for Sarah Jane. Go on; I'll be over in a minute."

"Such a fuss," Sarah Jane muttered under her breath as her young friend gently but firmly led her into her living room, and then near enough pushed her onto the sofa. "It's only a few cuts and bruises," she called as Maria vanished into the kitchen.

She was faintly amused by how very at home the girl was in her house, and she couldn't help being touched by the concern of both Jacksons. Between her uncomfortable night and the morning's events, she was feeling shaky enough that their genuine care was rather unnerving. She'd gotten so used to patching herself up that having someone else there to pick up the pieces was ... nice. She leaned back against the soft cushions and closed her eyes.

The sound of rattling crockery made her open them. Maria had placed a cup of strong, hot, sweet tea on the table at her elbow. "I found the whiskey," she whispered. "Don't tell Dad. I put a nip in your cup."

"And yours too, I imagine?" Sarah Jane lifted the tea and took a sip. She raised her eyebrows. "Hey, this is good!"

"You don't need to sound so surprised!" Maria returned in mock indignation, taking some of her own. "What next?"

"Oh, so you and your father _don't_ intend treating me like an invalid for the rest of the day?"

"Being an invalid isn't you," Maria said. "Besides, I bet you're itching to find out more about those kids, and get them back."

Sarah Jane smiled. "When did you get to know me so well? All right then. Chuck us over that email you were waving about and I'll have a look."

The girl obeyed with an alacrity that told Sarah Jane that the email had worried her more than she'd admitted. She squinted at the small print. "Most of the time I don't mind getting older," she complained, "but it's a real pain when I can't read."

"Do you want me to read it to you?" Maria asked, grinning.

"Go ahead," Sarah Jane told her with a wave, sinking back.

Maria took the battered piece of paper back. "Okey doke... where are we. Ah, got it. Yup. '...you're dead right about Ashley. Geeky as they come, but kind of cool. He knows everything in Physics - he even argued with the teacher about Einstein's Theory of Relativity!' - whoops. Luke strikes again."

"Did he ever do that at Park Vale?" Sarah Jane asked.

"No. Well, not that I know of, but you'd be better asking Clyde."

"H'mm. All right; carry on."

"'But what's really weird is that the others, the people who were here before, say that it's as if he's come back a completely different person. The other kids say that Ashley was clever, but not super brainy like he is now. Ashley liked sport and he loved footy and skateboarding, and now... he's just not interested.'"

"Clyde would find that amusing, I think," Sarah Jane said.

"Wouldn't he? I'll show him this later. Anyway, 'That's not the only weird thing around here. Kids have been disappearing, and nobody even seems to know they're gone! Nobody but me and my mate, and we were both new this term. We're in the top stream for quite a few subjects, see, and the numbers are never the same two lessons in a row. For example, on Monday we have History last double, and it's a small class - only sixteen of us. But sometimes, we have fourteen, and other times we have nineteen or twenty ... but the teacher never says anything about the extra names, or names missing when she calls the register! And when we ask about those people, everyone looks at us as if we're mad. How weird is that?'"

Sarah Jane sat up, curiosity reviving her more than the spiked tea did. "Now that _is_ interesting." She stared out of the window, deep in thought. "A perception filter could do that."

"A what?"

Sarah Jane flashed a smile. "It's difficult to describe. It's usually a piece of technology that projects a shield over something so that you see - or don't see - only what the projector wants you to see. Clear?"

"As mud," Maria muttered.

Sarah Jane laughed, feeling better by the minute. "You were bound to run into one eventually, and you'll understand perfectly when you do. As I said, it's difficult to describe."

"OK. So what do we do?" Maria's eyes were bright. "Break into the school?"

"I'm not sure I should be letting my daughter hang around with you if you're turning her into a criminal," Alan Jackson said with a grin as he strolled into the living room.

Sarah Jane looked up at him. "Oh, she has plenty of criminal instincts without me," she said sweetly.

"Oi! Sitting right here!"

"So I see. How are you feeling, Sarah Jane?"

"Back to normal now, Alan. Thanks for asking. Off to your meeting?"

"Yup. Don't know what time I'll be back, Maria, but it should be before five. If I'm late is it OK for her to stay here?"

"She's always welcome here," Sarah Jane said warmly.

"Good. Stay out of trouble, the pair of you!" He sauntered out, whistling something Sarah Jane felt that she should know and didn't. Maria followed him out and the older woman heard them exchange goodbyes and the front door close.

"We're not, are we?" Maria asked as she came back into the living room.

"We're not what?"

"Going to stay out of trouble?"

Sarah Jane grinned and rose carefully. She wasn't as completely fine as she'd given Alan and Maria to understand, but there was nothing broken or that wouldn't keep. "Do I look like the kind of girl to stay out of trouble when it's screaming 'here I come, ready or not'?"

"That's what I thought." They exchanged conpiratorial looks before going upstairs to talk to the souped up Mr Smith.

TBC.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

_**Many thanks to adodcefa who so far has been the only reviewer. Please, if you're reading this, do tell me what you think, whether it be good, bad or indifferent. Thanks. **_

_**Meanwhile, the story continues. For those of you who are awaiting the Doctor, he appears in the next chapter. Enjoy!**_

* * *

After spending a couple of hours with the Mr-Smith-Who-Wasn't, Maria and Sarah Jane descended from their attic eyrie. They'd discovered that Maria's cousin was right: despite the numbers of kids apparently disappearing from Hammersmith Comprehensive, the statistics relating to missing children in the area was only slightly higher than usual.

"Is your cousin the imaginative type?" Sarah Jane asked as they took a cup of tea in the kitchen.

Maria laughed. "Anna, imaginative? Not especially. She's a bit nosy though, and she notices things. I'd trust what she says if she thinks all this is a bit fishy."

"H'mm." Sarah Jane stirred her tea idly. "I'd like to talk to her before we do anything more. Do you think she'd be willing to meet us after school?"

"She'd jump at it! I know she's dying to meet you - and _no_, I haven't told her what we've really been doing, but she wants to do something in the media when she's grown up."

"OK then. You text her, and set that up. In the meantime I'll make a few calls and see if I can arrange to talk to someone in the school itself this afternoon."

"How are you going to manage that?" Maria asked curiously as she dug her phone out from her pocket and began texting with a speed that made her friend look at her enviously. "If they don't realise there's something wrong-"

"Because there's something odd going on at Hammersmith, something that reminds me of that affair at Deffrey Vale two years ago." Sarah Jane tapped her mouth with the bowl of her teaspoon. "Look, the thing that tipped me off about Deffrey Vale was the fact that a mediocre school with very little funding was suddenly investing in a lot of expensive equipment and managing to leapfrog its way up the league tables. Hammersmith Comp isn't quite that blatant, but their results last year were significantly better than they'd been for some time."

Maria's eyes were like saucers. "You don't think it's those Krillitane things again, do you? Or Slitheen like at our school?"

"I don't think so, but that's why I want to talk with your cousin." Sarah Jane gave a wry smile. "I'm not Torchwood _or_ the Doctor, and without Mr Smith in good working order, I want to look _very_ carefully before I leap."

Maria nodded. "Yeah, 'cos if it's something nasty, and Luke is involved. Oh!" She looked at her phone and glanced up with a grin. "Anna must be on her lunch hour. She says she'd love to meet us." Maria's eyes went to the kitchen clock. "Hammersmith doesn't finish lessons until four, so they get the full hour for lunch. If we go now -"

"Your father is going to kill me - but there's no time like the present. Come on!"

* * *

They were just about to roar out of the driveway of 13 Bannerman Road in Sarah Jane's usual breakneck style when Clyde pelted up to them and banged Sarah Jane's side. She frowned at him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Clyde grinned at her, opened the back door, and jumped in, talking non-stop all the while. "When I realised Maria wasn't in school this morning I thought something weird was up and wanted to suss it out. Lucky for you I did. You two were about to go - flamin' 'eck, Sarah Jane, what happened to you?"

She glanced into the mirror and grimaced slightly; there was a small bruise on her cheekbone. "An unpleasant encounter this morning. Never mind that now; we're off to Hammersmith Comprehensive."

"Isn't that Luke's new school?" Clyde asked as he opened a packet of crisps from his bag and started munching.

"That's the thing," Maria said, turning from her place in the front to look at him. "His fake parents came round to Sarah Jane's this morning. He's disappeared."

"Aw, man. Seriously, Sarah Jane, those people are careless. How d'you manage to lose two kids within six months of each other?"

"They think Luke is theirs," Maria reminded him, before going on to fill him in on the rest of the story, complete with a description of the morning's kerfuffle that made Clyde scowl.

"You need a dog, Sarah Jane," he said severely, hanging on to the back of the front seats. "K9 is so busy with that black hole of his that he's not much good to you. You need something with a loud bark and whopping teeth."

"No thanks," she said tartly. "Keeping up with you lot is quite enough without adding another responsbility to the mix. All right, Maria, do you know where we're going from here?"

Maria did, and before long she was squealing as she recognised her cousin. "There she is! Anna!" She waved frantically as Sarah Jane's little cream and green car drew to a stop.

"Hey, she's kind of cool," Clyde said approvingly.

Sarah Jane smiled at him in the mirror. She could see why he thought that; Maria's cousin was as dark as she was, but had a short, sleek bob in place of Maria's effervescent hair. Combined with her height and slimness, she projected an image of sophistication that Maria did not. "Cool isn't the be-all and end-all, you know, Clyde."

Maria snorted and pushed the car door open. "It is if you're Clyde. Anna!" She threw herself at her cousin and the two girls embraced tightly. Then she drew back. "Anna, here's Sarah Jane Smith, and our friend Clyde."

Taking the hint, Sarah Jane and Clyde climbed out of the car in their turn. "It's good to meet you, Anna," the former said, coming around to the pavement. "Do you know why we're here?"

Anna looked down at her. "Yeah. Maria said. Something to do with Ashley Stafford?"

Clyde leaned against the car, folded his arms, and grinned. "Yup. Only forget what you think you know, 'cos Ashley Stafford isn't really Ashley Stafford..."

Sarah Jane watched in bemusement as Anna Jackson's dark eyes grew wider and wider.

"OK then. So let me get this straight. Ashley - the Ashley I know - isn't Ashley at all, but Sarah Jane's adopted son, who is like a clone of Ashley." She paused. "D'you _know_ how ridiculous that sounds? I feel like I've wondered onto the X-Files. So that means we're missing two boys, Luke _and _Ashley, plus the random disappearing kids I told Maria about."

"That's a good summary," Sarah Jane agreed as they sat down on a wall around the corner from Hammersmith Comp. So, tell us about these missing kids then."

Anna shrugged. "It's weird. It only seems to happen in the top stream classes. Like I said. For example, we had French this afternoon, right? At the start of the term, the teacher took the register. There was twenty of us, and he said that he was happy we were all present and correct. Then the next lesson, there were eighteen, but that was OK 'cos there was a bug going round. But then the class jumped to twenty three, and he didn't say anything. I'd never seen those people before - all boys - and my mate Nadia said she'd noticed them too. But when we asked the others during the lesson they looked at us funny and said they'd always been there."

"But they weren't," Maria supplied.

"No, 'cos the next time they were missing, and the teacher never asked."

"Could it have been a pre-arranged absence?" Sarah Jane suggested.

"No, cos I said to Dan that sits on the other side of us that it was funny the way the numbers went, and he said 'Are you crazy or something? There's twenty in this class, there's always been twenty.' Just as if he'd never seen those other three boys. Nadia said their names and he told us we was dreaming and those boys had never been in our class and we must've been on something."

"Was that the only time it happened?" Clyde asked.

Anna's eyes went to him. "No. If it'ud just been the once, we'd have thought it was us, see. But it wasn't, cos it kept happening, but only in the classes where we're streamed. An' that's the other thing - Nadia and me are in different forms, and we've never seen the kids that go missing in any form, or at our year's assembly. S'only in lessons."

"But no-one questions their appearance or disappearance," Sarah Jane said thoughtfully. "All right, Anna, I want you to think carefully about this: is there anything about these people that stands out?"

"Apart from being scary-brilliant, you mean? Seriously, they were like that Ashley-Luke kid."

Sarah Jane bit her lip. "I see. Anything distinctive in their appearance?"

Anna's brow wrinkled. "I-I-I'm not sure."

"Is there any way you can get us into the school so we can see for ourselves?" Clyde asked, leaning forward.

Anna's brow smoothed and she grinned, a monkey grin that highlighted her resemblance to Maria. "Yeah, as it happens, you're in luck. It's parent-teacher evening which means-"

"-that afternoon school is open for visitors?" Maria finished.

"Yup." Anna grinned.

Maria and Clyde turned to Sarah Jane. "Well? What are we waiting for?" Clyde, ever the impatient one.

Sarah Jane took his arm. "Nothing at all. Let's investigate."

Clyde whooped and she shook her head. Sometimes she didn't think he took this seriously enough.

As it happened, getting into the school was relatively simple. No-one batted an eyelid when Sarah Jane introduced herself as a prospective parent, and Maria volunteered to play the daughter. Clyde was even more easily disposed of - Park Vale's uniform was designed along the same lines, with only the school ties and jumpers being different. Anna handed him her tie and donned her jumper with a grimace. Sarah Jane, watching the exchange with some amusement, could see why. The jumper was not designed to flatter and she could tell that this girl cared about such things.

"So are we ready? Maria, you're with me and for goodness' sake, remember to call me 'Mum'. Clyde, you'd better go and hang around somewhere inconspicuous. Anna, can you stick with us?"

"Easily. Maria's my cousin, I can just say that I'm showing you around."

"That'll do. All right, Clyde, off you scarper. Phone if you see something suspicious."

Clyde saluted, "Yes, ma'am." Sarah Jane gave him a push and he vanished down the corridor, stopping only long enough to flash her a grin over his shoulder.

Anna watched him with a tilted head. "He's kind of cute-"

Maria groaned and allowed her head to fall against Sarah Jane's shoulder. "You know - Mum - I think we're going to regret introducing those two."

There was nothing noticeable in the first classroom they visited, or the second, but as soon as they stood at the door of the third, Anna stiffened. She turned to Sarah Jane.

"Do you see that boy directly across from us? The blonde one?"

Sarah Jane glanced at the pupil in question. "Platinum blonde? Yes."

"He looks like Draco from _Harry Potter_," Maria commented after glancing in her own turn. "It's a bit ... creepy."

"He's one of them, anyway," Anna said quietly. "I've only ever seen him in this room."

Before Sarah Jane or Maria could respond the teacher, a woman of such small and slight stature that she made Sarah Jane seem tall, spoke to them.

"Anna. Are you joining us this afternoon?"

Anna smiled in a polite sort of way. "No, Miss Deering. I'm showing my cousin around."

"Well, bring your relatives into the classroom properly then!" The little woman beamed at them. "And please, do feel free to chip in and ask one of our students any questions you like. We haven't had many visitors so far, and I think we're feeling a little neglected."

Various rolled eyes around the classroom told Sarah Jane that the students did not necessarily share this sentiment, but once a journalist, always a journalist, and she certainly was not going to miss a chance for doing what she did best. "What are you studying this afternoon then?"

"We're discussing the scientific possibility of space-time travel," Miss Deering explained, causing Sarah Jane to start in surprise.

"I wasn't aware that was part of the National Curriculum," she said mildly.

"Oh, it isn't, really," the teacher said. "This is a GCSE English literature class, and as we've been studying a number of Victorian science-fiction and fantasy works, they're going to try and write something similar themselves as part of their coursework component. We have a number of keen scientists in this group, so I thought it would be a good opportunity for some cross-curricular work."

"I believe I may know one of your keen scientists," Sarah Jane said with a glance at Maria. "A son's friend. Ashley Stafford?" She held her breath.

Miss Deering's mobile face clouded. "He was a sweet boy. Incredibly gifted in science, maths and so on, from what I understand, and he'd've certainly enjoyed today's lesson. Not the most imaginative, I grant you, which is odd, because before he disappeared the first time he was one of my best students."

Sarah Jane nodded. "I see." She glanced around the classroom, noting how the students were working well together. Evidently this was a topic that appealed.

For a moment she considered working her way round to talk to Maria's Draco-clone, but a quick look told her that her temporary daughter had forestalled her. Instead, she turned to a small girl with short, spiky red hair - judging from her skin tone, the colour was her own - highlighted with a shade of pink so fleurescent that Sarah Jane had to blink. "So, what do you think, then? Is travelling through time and space a possibility?"

The girl shrugged. "Anyfing's possible, innit? Me, I don't think you need to go to space to see weird stuff happen." She leaned closer to Sarah Jane. "There's enough of that right here, don't ya think?"

Sarah Jane smiled. "Oh, definitely." She looked quickly at Maria and then back again. "And what about here at Hammersmith Comprehensive? Does 'weird stuff' happen here too?"

"Like him over there, you mean? Gives me the creeps, he does, the way he stares. An' 'e's not half proud either. Looks down on us lot, he does."

"Is he the only one?"

The girl looked at Sarah Jane sharply. "No, 'e's not, as it happens. Look here, Miss, why are you askin' me all this?"

Sarah Jane made a quick decision. "Because you're right. There is something weird happening here, and I'm trying to find out what. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"Ha, do you think you're flaming Scully or somefing? No bloody way, a nice lady like you. Oh, all right, don't get yer knickers in a twist, or Miss'll come over and yammer at me for bein' rude. Well, 'e disappears, dunn'e? An' sometimes, sometimes when 'e finks no-one's looking, he looks like sommat else."

Before Sarah Jane could follow this up, Maria came round the table. "Sa - Mum, can we move on? I'd like to see some other classes." Her dark eyes had an almost feverish glitter that Sarah Jane had never seen there before.

* * *

Anna led them to a girls' toilet that had clearly seen much, much better days if the lack of toilet seats and the presence of chain-flushes was anything to go by. On the plus side, it was out of the way and unlikely to be used on an open day.

"Well?" Sarah Jane asked, looking at her young friend.

Maria shook her head, her eyes still sparkling in that odd way. "Nothing. I think we were wrong, Sarah Jane. There's nothing strange here at all." Her gaze became distant.

Anna looked frightened. "Maria! You said he was creepy, what'd he say to you?"

"Nothing you need to worry about, Anna." Maria's voice gentle. "He spoke of dreams, that's all. Just dreams."

"What kind of dreams?" Sarah Jane demanded sharply. She leaned casually against one of the partitions, her hands behind her back, and used her thumb to flip up the top of her watch.

At that point her mobile rang and she glanced at it. Clyde. Mentally cursing the boy's timing, she answered.

"Sarah Jane, you've got to get here _now_," she heard him say urgently. "This is so weird. Seriously, it's gone straight to surreal... and no-one seems to notice!"

Her eyebrows went up. There it was again. Something strange happening and hardly anyone realising. "All right, calm down, Clyde. I'm on my way. Where are you?"

"The front gate," Clyde said. "I'm not there, I'm hiding in the bushes. Out of the line of fire, you know?" He rung off and Sarah Jane bit her lip over his last words. That did not sound good.

"I must go," Maria said.

"Yes, that's right," Anna said eagerly. "That's what Sarah Jane said, we're all going, aren't we?"

Sarah Jane did not respond. Instead she grabbed both girls by the arms. "It's time to run."

Run they did, even Maria, although Sarah Jane was certain that the girl was not running for the same reason she or Anna were. Several people complained as they headed down the corridors, but the only ones Sarah Jane noticed were the platinum blondes who watched their flight with smiles that were both detached and approving. Her breath caught; every instinct she had was screaming that they were getting close to the source of this mystery. Finally, there were out the front door, onto the car park ... and Sarah Jane's breath arrested again.

"What is it?" Anna panted. "What's wrong?"

Still maintaining her grip on Maria, Sarah Jane turned to her. "Don't you _see_?"

Anna shrugged. "I just see some kids bunking off the rest of the day, that's all." Her nose wrinkled. "Now there's _real_ trouble, Sarah Jane. Behind you."

She whipped around, suddenly aware that her watch was bleeping insistently. The platinum blonde that Maria had been talking to was standing there.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Sarah Jane flung at him. "And what have you done to Maria?"

The boy gave a beatific smile. "I have done nothing to her that she did secretly wish for herself."

"What does that mean?" Anna asked shrilly, trying to break Sarah Jane's hold on her arm.

"Hush, Anna. Let me deal with this. Is this what you've done to them, all the children you've taken?"

"I did not take them," the boy said, his voice cold and gentle and implacable. "They came. Willingly, they came. They go to eternal youth. Is that not what your kind longs for, even those of you who are old?" His mouth quirked at one corner as his eyes looked Sarah Jane up and down.

"How do you take them, _how_?"

"I do not take them," he repeated. "Or only a very select few. The rest, they come because they wish to. Like your friend here."

Sarah Jane was dismayed to see Maria smile at the boy, such a knowing, belonging smile. Her grip tightened.

"See, she holds you back," the boy said to Maria. "As they always do, the old ones, keeping you where you may be seen and not heard..."

"I've never done that, never!" Sarah Jane shouted at him. "I only want to keep them _safe_..."

"Safe, smothered, bound and powerless? How is this safety? No child with a mind of his or her own desires this; this is what you have inflicted upon them against their will. So they come to me." He held out his hand. "Come away, Maria."

"NO!" Sarah Jane stood with her sonic lipstick extended. "If she moves towards you, I use this. It will show who and what you truly are."

He lifted a careless shoulder. "Do so if you like. You cannot stop us, and seeing our true forms will avail you little." The smile that played around his mouth was malicious. "They are marching now, you know, your brightest and best, for we take only the brightest and best. They will leave you and never return."

"Where are they? The children you've taken?"

"You would not understand if I told you."

"Try me."

The cruel half smile hovered again. "Still, you would not understand, so I will tell you in terms you do. Second to the right, and straight on til morning. Maria, come."

Maria went, and Sarah Jane fired her sonic lipstick. As she had promised, the beam shattered the boy's perception filter, but she had little time to process what she saw, for almost as soon as the beam reached him he raised one hand and the beam bounced back.

The last thing Sarah Jane saw as consciousness fell away was the glowing faces of the boy and Maria as they vanished.


	4. Chapter 4

**Many thanks again to adodcefa, who has been a regular reviewer here as well as commenting on _Teaspoon_. This chapter is the whole of chapter four; you may remember that the original fourth part was much shorter. There's one more part to come. Please do tell me what you think of this bit: is everyone in character? What do you think of the whole scenario? Would it work better as pure SJA? Does it even make _sense_?  
**

* * *

For the second time in one day, Sarah Jane surfaced from blackness to the sound of argument.

"Come on, Sarah. This is no time to be napping. Wakey-wakey-" She knew that voice.

"Hey, she could be hurt!" That was Clyde, clearly indignant on her behalf. When had he become so protective?

"Sarah? Nah, she's just gone headlong into trouble again, never stops to think-"

Sarah Jane opened her eyes and turned her head to look in the direction of the first speaker. "Speak for yourself, Doctor." It was still the Doctor she'd met at Deffrey Vale, she noted as he beamed at her and extended a hand to help her up. "What are you doing here?"

He wiggled his eyebrows. "Oh, you know. The usual. Random spikes of energy and all that."

"Hang on," said Clyde. "This is him? The Doctor you told me about? The one you went travelling with?"

"Yup!" said the Doctor, with a resounding smacking of lips.

Clyde ignored him. "I thought he was gonna be cool. Him? He's a fop!"

"Oi! I'll have you know this suit is straight from Savile Row, courtesy of the TARDIS!"

"See? He's a fop."

"A fop with a time machine who can – probably - get you out of this mess," retorted the Doctor with a look that reminded Sarah Jane of how offhanded - rude, even - he'd been to Mickey Smith.

"All right, boys, that's enough. Let's focus, shall we?"

The Doctor gave her a paternal smile that looked especially ridiculous in this incarnation, given their respective apparent ages. "Aw, bless. She's gone all mumsy."

Sarah Jane sent him a look that she fervently hoped promised unpleasant retribution at some future unspecified date. "Doctor? _Children_ are missing. Let's _concentrate_!"

Instantly, the Doctor's veil of frivolity dropped and she saw again the tormented man from the school gym. "I haven't forgotten, and I'll help you get them back, Sarah Jane. Especially since this is all my fault..."

"What?" She put a restraining hand on Clyde's arm; the boy was still clearly unsure about the Doctor.

"I came here because I was following an alien trace. An alien trace I honestly never thought I'd see again. I thought they were all wiped out during the War..." The Doctor's voice trailed into silence and his eyes looked behind Sarah Jane, through her, into a past and a future where she could not follow.

"Who are they?" she asked gently. There was little she could do for him.

"The Jenan. Strictly speaking, they're not even from this universe, but rather from another, overlapping universe. Their main claim to fame, if you like, is the fact that they possess the ability to dimension hop, and since they were a peaceable people, we - the Time Lords, I mean - allowed them to carry on on the condition that each Jeni picked a timestream, and stuck to it. They weren't allowed to create paradoxes either, so they had to follow the stream in a linear way or across relatively large periods. With me so far?"

Sarah Jane suppressed a smile as she saw how wide Clyde's eyes had become. She nodded.

The Doctor shoved his hands deep into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Like I say, they'd agreed a compact with Council, and while there was the odd renegade here and there, most of the time it was all fine and dandy."

"So what went wrong?" Clyde asked, sounding vaguely polite for the first time.

The Doctor gave him a rather scornful look. "Weren't you listening? The Time War happened. They were wiped out."

"Well, uh, duh, 'cos they weren't, were they? Or we wouldn't be here now!"

The Doctor tutted. "Don't they teach respect for your elders in school anymore? Anyway, as you point out, obviously they weren't wiped. And equally obviously," he added with a scowl, "they're not peaceable people anymore if they're kidnapping."

"The boy - the one who took Maria - said that he didn't take anyone," Sarah Jane said. "He said that they came willingly."

"That's bollocks, Sarah Jane," Clyde objected. "You saw Maria's face. She didn't know what she was doing."

The Doctor looked interested. "H'mm. Hypnotic suggestion, you think?" He looked at Clyde. "Aliens like hypnotic suggestion, y'see." His expression became vague. "That does actually kind of make sense..." His gaze drifted.

"Are you going to explain?" Sarah Jane asked tartly with a pointed glance at her watch when the Doctor's silence threatened to lengthen, and he snapped back to attention, all grin and earnestness.

"See, Jenans, they don't reproduce in the normal way, or not as a rule. Their main way of surviving as a species has been to recruit volunteers from the places they visit. Now," the Doctor went on as Sarah Jane and Clyde opened their mouths, "the Jenan, the original Jenan, placed great importance on the 'volunteer' bit. Only adults could come along for the ride, and they had to fully consent, 'cos once they did, they'd become Jenan and leave their old lives behind forever. But war does funny things to people. They lose all sense of rationality."

"So you think that the Jenan are now hypnotising people into agreeing to go with them?" Sarah Jane clarified. "All right, then. How do we undo it?"

The Doctor looked sheepish. "Well, erm, as you know, I've made it my business to spend as much time as I could away from all that. It was Council stuff, nothing to do with me."

"Doctor, are you trying to tell me that you don't know?"

"Um - yes?"

She turned on her heel, watch flipped up, and began walking quickly in the direction that the mass of children had been moving in earlier. The children that Anna had not noticed ... Sarah Jane frowned. "Clyde, Anna. Where is she?"

The boy huffed. "She's a dead loss, Sarah Jane. When you got knocked out she ran off. She said something about getting help, but me, I think she lost her nerve."

"But you don't know where she went?"

"She ran in the direction of the school building."

Sarah Jane exhaled a breath. Hopefully, the child would be fine, if she'd run back into school. At least she would be away from the Jenan, especially the boy who'd taken Maria. She shuddered. She would have to check later; she did not want another disappearance on her conscience.

"What are we doing?" Clyde asked, happy to be apparently leaving the Doctor behind.

She glanced at him. "We're going to try and find the Jenan. If we can do that, hopefully the Doctor can reason with them."

"Aw, can't we do this ourselves? Just the gang?"

"I wish you could," the Doctor said from behind them as he jogged up. "But A, most of your team is currently AWOL, and B, your best bet in dealing with these guys is to have a Time Lord handy." He grinned. "C'est moi!"

"Just don't get yourself hypnotised or captured or threatened with burning," Sarah Jane said sharply. "No heroics, understood? That goes for you too, Clyde."

"You're the one who usually gets hypnotised, not me," the Doctor pointed out with irritating cheeriness. "Have you picked anything up yet?" He nodded in the direction of her watch.

"You mean you don't have any alien gizmos on you?" Clyde asked incredulously.

"Why bother, when I gave Sarah some? Well?"

Sarah Jane had come to a stop and stood with her attention focused completely on her watch. She began walking in the direction of one of the school's outhouses. Possibly a bike shed, she thought. She looked up. "I've found something."

"Well, just hold on and wait -" the Doctor began, but she ignored him (why break the habit of a lifetime, after all) and opened the shed door. Sure enough, it did contain one bike, but she was certain that its primary purpose these days was to facilitate certain other teenage activities. Not that that mattered, for crouching in the corner, behind the single rusted bike, was a tiny figure that reminded her eerily of a waxwork of a starving child that she'd seen once in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors.

* * *

"Sarah?" "Sarah Jane?" The voices called to her from outside, but inside the small, musty, dark shed it was only she and the child.

"Wait," she called out. "Just wait." She crouched so that she was on eye level with the little one, who looked to be barely six, if that. "Hello," she said softly.

The child looked up at her and she held her breath; as she had suspected, this was a Jenan. Even in the dim light the alien seemed to have an almost luminescent glow. "Hello," it said, causing her to momentarily wonder if this species was actually speaking English or using some form of universal translator.

"Why are you here?"

The – child, for want of a better word – eyed her warily. "They do wrong. They disgrace the name of Izgubljenia. They betray everything we were. I would have no part of it."

"You are a Jenan."

"Jeni. I am Jeni. I alone. The others …. They are not truly Jenan. I, only I, am the last Jeni born."

Sarah Jane's breath caught. "And you don't like what the others are doing, how they're breaking your compact with the Time Lords."

The sharp glance she received from the glowing eyes facing hers reminded her that this was no child. "How do you know of that, you who are planet bound?"

A shadow fell across the door, blocking out the little light there was. "Because I told her," the Doctor said from where he stood behind Sarah Jane. She shivered; with the sunlight behind him he looked for a moment like the powerful alien she knew him to be.

The Jeni blinked, evidently similarly affected. "You are a Time Lord."

"The last."

The alien got to its feet, and Sarah Jane realised that her initial impression was not far off; it did indeed look to be a child, especially now when it was dwarfed by the Doctor's looming darkness. "Then you must stop this travesty," it hissed. "We were a proud people, Time Lord. These deeds shame us, to take younglings from other worlds without their true knowledge or consent… to force them to receive the essence that makes us what we are!"

"I know. I'm going to stop it, I promise."

Sarah Jane leaned forward; even kneeling, she was almost at eye level with the small alien. "Can you help?" She rose, to emphasise her urgency. "They have our children up there – they have my _son_!"

The Jeni gave her a look that she thought was pity or compassion, but in the dimness of the shed she was not sure. She shivered again and moved to the door, where she slipped out past the Doctor. The wall-tempered brightness was like a balm.

Clyde, who'd been standing behind the Doctor but who was now beside her once more, stared at the childlike alien who followed the Time Lord, wincing and blinking, out of the shed. "Cool," she heard him breathe. She suppressed a smile; Clyde's neverending enthusiasm and wonder always bolstered her own. Yet the boy had not forgotten why they were here, for he'd crouched beside the Jeni, just as she'd done in the bicycle shed. "Where are they? Where did the other kids go?"

The Jeni turned to fix its pale eyes on the Doctor. "You will be angry, Time Lord."

The Doctor folded his arms. "Really? I'm a pleasant kind of chap as a rule." His eyes remained fixed on the Jeni's silvery ones.

The alien dropped its gaze. "The children, the lost ones … they are being held in one of your transdimensional crafts."

The Doctor's face became very still. "You have a TARDIS? How? Where? _When_?"

The Jeni shrugged in a near-universal gesture. "I was not fully mature then; not yet truly a Jeni. I believe it was stolen in the last year of the War. We modified it as we modify our recruits. It is no longer completely of Gallifrey."

Sarah Jane watched the the line of the Doctor's jaw become so grim that she thought it would crack, but he only said, "Doesn't matter now, does it? It'll have bonded to you, 'cos that's what it does, and then you've tinkered with it…" He seemed to lose his breath and then catch it again. "Bring us there."

The Jeni inclined his – her? – head in a manner that she could only describe as 'deferential'. "It shall be as you wish, Time Lord." Moving with a sinuous grace that belied its small, childlike form, the alien glided away from the bicycle shed and moved evenly towards …

….the school skip, where he seemed to dematerialise.

* * *

Sarah Jane and Clyde, who had followed close behind, stopped dead. She did not need to look at her young companion to know that there were be a wide grin on his face. She glanced on her other side and saw that the Doctor seemed torn between his recent anger and nascent eye-popping glee.

"They got one that _works_," she heard him mutter, mainly to himself, she was sure. "How unfair is _that_?!" He prepared to move towards the skip, but Sarah Jane shot out a hand and held him back.

"Patience, Doctor. Patience."

The look of glee faded and he became the dark man she hardly knew. "There is a time and place for patience. This is not it." He swung on her, his eyes blazing, and she stepped back in the face of his unexpected anger. "They've broken the compact, and there's no-one to stop them, only me, and I thought they were gone so I never checked. If they're crossing dimensions and universes willy-nilly like this, they're going to hurt the fabric that holds it all together!"

She swallowed and nodded and let him go, but the grip she had on Clyde's shoulder tightened. The Doctor walked up to the skip and banged it, hard, the sound reverberating against the nearby school walls.

"I am a Time Lord, you who claim to be of Izgubljenia! You swore you wouldn't do this, that you'd never take recruits unwilling and unknowing. I demand that you come and face me, according to Article Fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation!"

Something that vaguely resembled a building ghosted in the air, and the platinum-fair boy who had vanished with Maria appeared. Sarah Jane bit back a gasp as she recognised Maria and Luke behind him.

The boy leaned casually against a nearly invisible door frame and folded his arms. "Or _what_, Time Lord?"

The Doctor's voice took on the pleading, reasonable tone that she remembered from far too many negotiations with hostile aliens. "Look, I don't want to stop you from perpetuating your species. I understand that, I do, but you know what you're doing! You know what it could mean!"

The boy shrugged. "The affairs of the temporally bound are of no interest to us."

The Doctor's jaw tightened. "That's exactly why you should be responsible in what you do, because if you aren't …" He shook his head. "The consequences could be catastrophic."

"For the temporally bound; even perhaps, for you, last of the Time Lords. Not for us."

Sarah Jane could not stay silent. "But if the fabric holding the universe shatters, if it tears, won't you ultimately be affected too?"

The boy smiled. A disconcertingly beautiful smile. "Ah, it's the journalist again. Never learn your lesson, do you, Miss Smith? Always interfering … Ultimately, yes. We'd be affected. But not at once, and not much, and in the meantime we'd survive for far longer than your puny human mind can comprehend…"

"Oi, who're you calling puny?" Clyde called. He broke away from Sarah Jane. "Maria, Luke, it's us, _come on_!" He moved to go past the boy, to his friends, but the Doctor was faster and he was pushed back towards Sarah Jane.

The alien boy grinned. "You see? They don't want you." He stepped aside so that there was nothing blocking Luke and Maria's passage from the Jenan TARDIS. "They want to stay with me."

"Only because you hypnotised them," Sarah Jane pointed out, hating her voice for trembling. "What sort of a choice is that?"

"Who said anything about choice?"

"You did. You said – "

The boy laughed. "How naïve. How very sweet. It's their choice because I _make_ it theirs…"

"What's the matter, scared that they'll leave you if you don't mess with their minds?" Clyde taunted.

A small sound distracted Sarah Jane and she glanced in the direction it came from, and frowned when she saw nothing. Nothing except a shimmer in the air. Taking advantage of the boy's absorption in the Doctor and Clyde (she must remember, later, to thank Clyde for his opportune stroppiness), she moved slightly sideways and deliberately dropped her bag so that it voided its contents. She looked up through her lashes as she collected things together, but she was still ignored.

Something was pressed in her hand just as she went to rise. _You forgot this_, a high voice said in her mind. She willed herself not to start. _You can use it_. She looked down and saw the delicate Warp Star that had been a gift from a Verron soothsayer some months before.

"How?" she murmured, more to herself than to her invisible friend.

Before the Jeni could answer, a familiar whooshing began and she whirled to see that the boy and her own pair had vanished back into the Jenan TARDIS.

"Sarah, your lipstick!" the Doctor was yelling, urgently, and she was beside him without realising how she had got there, her lipstick out and side by side with his screwdriver.

"What are we trying to _do_?"

"They're not going anywhere," the Doctor said grimly. "No matter what they've done to it, it's still a TARDIS, and the technology inside our sonic whatsits is still Gallifreyan. In this case, like calls to like and the energy from the sonics will help the TARDIS concentrate on the nearest Time Lord. Me."

She nodded wordlessly and watched. The TARDIS seemed to be unsure; one moment it was fully visible, the next fully invisible, and then again somewhere in between.

"Is it working?" she gasped.

"Sarah Jane, that other little alien thing is back," Clyde called from just behind her, and she almost turned to look at him, to tell him to run, to get out of the way…

"Don't look!" the Doctor hissed. "Keep your attention focused…" Attempting to tether the TARDIS was evidently having an effect on him; he was white and sweat beaded on his brow. Fleetingly, she wondered how much of his own energy was being drained by this.

"It says to use the Warp Star!" Clyde yelled as the TARDIS became fainter despite all their efforts. "It'll boost the signal – oh my God, I sound like _Star Trek_!"

Unseen, the fingers of her left hand gently brushed the cut edges of the Warp Star. Very gently; she'd been warned it could be dangerous if handled roughly. Still holding the Warp Star, she brought her left hand up so that it clasped around her right, allowing the Star to touch the sonic lipstick. Instantly, the TARDIS became more substantial, and then more….

When it was dense enough to be tangible the Doctor moved closer to it, ignoring her cry of protest, and laid a gentle hand on one rusted and pitted side. In a moment it was clearly, visibly, solid again, and Sarah Jane exhaled the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding.

"Keep your sonic on it," the Doctor ordered before she could lower her hands. "He'll try to leave again, and he's not going to."

"What are you going to do?" Clyde questioned.

"The Time Lord will do nothing," Sarah Jane's Jeni friend said, materialising in front of them. "This is mine to do and mine alone."

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the look on the Doctor's face. "Are you sure?" he asked. "If there's any other way-?"

The small Jeni bobbed its head. "There is none, only this."

"You know what it will do."

"Better us than all."

"I _really_ don't like how that sentence went," Clyde muttered.

The Doctor gave the Jeni a brief nod. "I'll try once more … " He turned to Sarah Jane. "May I have that Warp Star of yours?"

"Of course." She pressed it into his palm and squeezed to show her support, but the smile he gave her as thanks did not reach his eyes. "Come on, show your face!" he yelled. "Or are you too scared to look at me?"

The blonde boy appeared at the door again. "I'm afraid of nothing," he said contemptuously.

"Really?" The Doctor's voice was very gentle. "Are you sure about that? 'Cos, see, I have this, and if that's what it takes to make you reconsider, to let those kids go…" He held up the Warp Star and its many facets caught the light, making it seem larger and brighter than it was.

The boy blinked and stepped back. "You won't use it, not you, with your high and mighty ideals about life in the universe-"

"My high and mighty ideals didn't stop me from blowing up the Daleks – or my own people."

Sarah Jane bit her lip so hard that she was surprised that her teeth did not break the skin; the sound of Clyde's gasp told her that he was as shocked as she was.

"Let the kids go, and we'll renegotiate your compact –" The Doctor sounded desperate, she thought, listening to him.

The boy scoffed. "What, condemn my species to extinction? I don't think so."

"Then you are no true Jeni!" Sarah Jane's small friend said, appearing with stunning suddenness between the Doctor and the blonde boy. "Jeni, _true_ Jeni, know that we do is a privilege and not a right. We never take, never demand, but only accept, with gratitude, that which is _freely_ given." The small form was visibly trembling in its anger.

"And that's why you nearly died out, isn't it," the boy began, sneering. "The new Jenan race, _my_ Jenan race, will have more sense-"

"No it will not, for I will stop it. No, Doctor," the Jeni said before the Doctor could move or protest. "We have discussed this. This is mine to do, since all else has failed." The small form glided towards him and extended a frail hand. Sarah Jane watched with a lump in her throat as the Doctor wrapped both of his hands around the Jeni's. Somehow, she had known it would come to this.

"What are you -?" the boy said, and for the first time she thought she could hear fear in that sweet, coldly pure voice.

"This!" cried the Jeni, holding the Warp Star aloft so that it once again caught the evening sun. "And _this_!"

Sarah Jane was never quite sure what happened after that. She thought she saw the blue gleam of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver; thought that she saw the Doctor's face, stiller and sadder than she had ever seen it; perhaps that was Clyde, crying or shouting or marvelling… she couldn't make it out. All she knew was that the Jenan TARDIS seemed to expand and glow with a light so bright that she had to close her eyes, and that there was noise coming from somewhere, but she could not place or define it …. And then, suddenly, there was near-total silence and the normal light of late afternoon, and she was blinking the last of the retina burn from her eyes.

"What happened?" she whispered shakily, realising that she and Clyde were clinging to each other.

"I'm not sure, Sarah Jane, but – but I think they're dead. Or gone."

"Only one is dead," the Doctor said evenly.

They turned to look at him, and he indicated with his head. Only a pile of silvery ashlike dust showed where the Jeni had been only a moment before. Even as they watched, a light breeze picked up and the glittering particles were dispersed into the air, revealing the Warp Star that lay, deceptively harmless, on the ground. Sarah Jane caught her breath on a sob that was as much shock as sorrow, and slowly bent down to retrieve it with reverent gentleness.

"Sarah Jane, look!" She glanced up at Clyde, and then followed the line of his pointing finger. In a moment she forgot her shock and the resurgent discomfort of the various aches and bruises she had accrued during the day, for there, dazed and bewildered at the door of the Jenan TARDIS, stood Luke and Maria. Their eyes widened at sight of her.

"Mum!" Luke shouted, and he staggered and stumbled into her arms, followed almost at once by Maria, and then Clyde in one of the group hugs the latter professed to despise, but he was holding on as tight as any of them.

She looked up over their heads to smile her thanks at the Doctor, but he wasn't watching them, wasn't even smiling. His attention was focused on another boy, one who was curled in a tight ball where the blonde alien had been standing, but not curled so tightly that she could not see his face.

"Ashley!"

* * *

**One more bit to go! :)**


	5. Chapter 5, part one

**_Thanks to those who have reviewed! Here's the next bit. As before, it's more of an extract of a complete chapter than anything else. I still hope that the rest of chapter five will finish the story, but it's becoming a bit of a monster, so it may well run to six chapters! All feedback welcome._**

* * *

It was, Maria decided, easily the weirdest experience she'd ever had, and since she'd had a number of those since meeting Sarah Jane six months ago, that was saying a good deal.

One minute she'd been having what was essentially an out-of-body episode, and then the next she'd been back inside her own skin, and feeling the same momentary suffocation she'd had years ago, when as a child her mother had forced her into super tight leotards for ballet lessons. It gave her an entire new insight into the Slitheen.

Luckily, the sensation lasted only a second, and she was anchored to her own body by the touch of a hand on hers. She turned her head to see Luke Smith (and it was Luke Smith, she knew that as completely as she knew her own name) smiling back at her in his shy way.

"Where are we?" Luke asked.

She shrugged. "You know as much as I do." She glanced about her at the sound of other voices, and was jolted back to memory by the sight of other children. So many other children that she wondered that they could all fit within the seeming confines of the space they were in. Not all of them were human either, she noted, as she took in over large eyes, oddly textured skin, and proportions that were somehow _wrong_.

"We were at the school, your new school," she remembered aloud. "Anna – that's my cousin – said there was strange stuff going on here, and then this morning, I think it was, the Staffords came and told your mum that you'd disappeared …"

Luke's face lit up. "Sarah Jane, you mean? She really is my mum? I'm not Ashley Stafford?"

Maria grinned at him. "Nope. You're Luke Smith, you are. Ashley Stafford's a completely different person who just happens to look like you. Or you look like him. Never mind that now," she added as Luke's eyes grew wider and wider as he took in the implications, "we thought there was something fishy going on and we were _right_!"

"So where's my mum? I didn't know what was going on, really … it was like what you call dreams, only I don't dream, do I. And if it was aliens Mum'd _be_ here."

"And she is," Maria nudged. "Look, over there. Clyde's there too and –" She broke off as Luke stumbled, more clumsily than she had ever seen him move (Clyde was right, the boy really didn't have much in the way of natural balance) towards Sarah Jane, and she realised that she was running too. Most people wouldn't call Sarah Jane Smith a paragon of normality, but when she found herself in the older woman's arms again, she realised that being normal didn't matter. This was safety, home, just as her father was.

And then Sarah Jane stiffened in their group hug. "Ashley!" she whispered. "It's Ashley Stafford!"

"Where?" Luke twisted to follow his mother's gaze, and Maria did likewise. A boy huddled on the ground in a tight ball. Even without being able to see his face properly, it was clear that he closely resembled Luke – his hair colour, the line of his jaw, even the way he held himself …

Maria grabbed Luke as made to follow Sarah Jane to his double. "Leave it to Sarah Jane. You can talk to him later."

"Why? I just wanted to tell him sorry. Maybe he'd like to be friends." Not for the first time, his innocence made her heart wrench.

"Later," she repeated, and they watched as Sarah Jane knelt down by the other boy. Even Clyde said nothing, but simply stood next to them, one arm still around Luke's shoulders. For the first time she noticed the tall thin man in a suit who was leaning against a wall. There was something familiar about him, she thought, but didn't worry about it further.

"-away!" the boy who was clearly Ashley Stafford said. Maria held on to Luke again, just in case.

"Ashley, I realise you're very upset and confused," Sarah Jane was saying in the gentle, soothing voice Maria had heard her use from time to time with Luke, Maria herself, and the odd distraught alien. "My name is Sarah Jane Smith. I'm a journalist, and your parents asked me to help them find you."

"Did they?" Luke whispered in an aside to Maria. She nodded, but kept her eyes fixed on Sarah Jane and Ashley.

"My mum and dad?"

Sarah Jane nodded.

"Are they here? Where are they?"

"They don't know we've found you yet," Sarah Jane told him. "We need to check you over first. My friend here, he's a doctor, Doctor John Smith. He'll have a look at you if that's OK?"

Maria realised why the tall thin man was familiar. Sarah Jane had photo of the two of them in her attic – "that's the Tenth one," she'd said, casually, when Maria had asked.

The man who must be the Doctor knelt down next to Sarah Jane and produced something that the girl realised was sonic. _Sonic screwdriver_, she thought with a grin, remembering Sarah Jane's comments on aliens and gender stereotyping. Although the sonic lipstick had been extremely useful during the Kudlak affair, simply because it _was_ a lipstick…

"Nothing much wrong with you apart from a few misfiring synapses, but that's what happens when you're subjected to long term hypnosis." The Doctor sounded far, far too cheerful, and Sarah Jane's glare told the teens what she thought of his bedside manner.

"Good to know I'm not the only one to get landed in it," Clyde muttered. Maria poked him in the side for that, just on general principles.

But Ashley still wouldn't get up. Luke shook himself out of Maria's grasp and went to stand next to his mother. "We only want to help you," he said anxiously. "Won't you get up?"

Ashley froze. "Who the hell are you?" Even from where she stood, Maria could see his throat contract as he gulped. "Are you my double, or something?" For the first time, he looked more alert. "I know, this is all a big joke, innit. Let the kid think he's safe and then screw with his mind…"

Luke was plainly distressed. He hunkered down. "We wouldn't do that. That's cruel. We only want to help. Please get up."

But Ashley only closed his eyes again and curled up once more. Sarah Jane turned on the Doctor. "Well, that was spectacularly successful, Doctor! Now what do we do? We can't leave him here, and I won't return him to his parents in this state." Maria saw her hand go to her cheekbone, and she knew the older woman was remembering the abuse of the morning.

The Doctor's face was grim. "No. He's not the only problem, either." His eyes went from Luke and Ashley to Maria and back. "There's more kids, isn't there, in that –"

"JARDIS?" Clyde supplied.

Instantly the atmosphere lightened and Sarah Jane laughed. The Doctor glared. Luke and Maria glanced at each other and shrugged. Maria poked Clyde again. "Explain," she demanded.

Clyde's grin flashed out. "Well, those aliens, they're called Jenan, see? An' they pinched a TARDIS, 'cos they told us so. Takes too long to call it a 'Jenan TARDIS' every time – so .. 'JARDIS'! Geddit?"

Maria shook her head. Dear, dear Clyde. "Shut it, you," she said affectionately. "This is serious." She looked at the Doctor. "Yeah, there's more kids in there. Some of them are little, too – no more than six, or seven. And – and, they're not all human either, I don't think."

"Scavengers!" the Doctor spat out and strode towards the JARDIS, every line of this long thin frame rigid.

"I've rarely seen him so angry," Maria heard Sarah Jane say softly. "This has opened some wounds for the Doctor, I think…" She reached out and squeezed Luke's shoulder.

"What's going to happen?" Maria asked, jerking her head in the direction of the JARDIS.

"We'll check the children and return them," Sarah Jane said firmly.

Luke at her. "Mum, how? There's loads of them in there."

"I have a big house."

"Big enough for at least ten human kids and a lot of alien ones?"

Sarah Jane's eyes widened and she leaned back against the wall. "As many as that?"

Maria bit her lip. "That's not the only problem."

"Yes?"

"Well, I sort of got the idea that some of them aren't from now. The human ones. I think some of them might be from another time."

Sarah Jane closed her eyes and opened them again. "Past or future?"

Maria continued to chew on her bottom lip. "Um, I'm not sure. Past, maybe? Luke?"

Her friend shrugged. "They could've been either." He looked down at Ashley. "What about him? The Doctor says he's fine."

He bent down to help the other boy to his feet, but Ashley sat up, leaned against the wall with his knees to his chest, folded his arms, and glared. In that moment, Maria saw a shadow of the arrogant platinum-haired boy he had been, only minutes ago, and she shivered.

"I'm not going anywhere 'til you tell me what's going on!" Ashley said. His eyes narrowed. "You'll do it, too, 'cos if you don't I'll call the police on you lot, especially him." He jerked his head in the direction of the JARDIS, and then as quickly as he'd stiffened, he slumped. Sarah Jane knelt down beside him and put a tentative hand on his knee; he did not resist when she pulled him gently into her arms.

"He's still not right, is he, Mum?" Luke asked softly, echoing Maria's own thoughts. "It's like he doesn't know who to be, himself of the other boy."

Maria wrapped her arms around herself and leaned gratefully into Clyde when the latter placed a friendly arm across her shoulders. "Will that happen to us too? Luke and me?"

Clyde squeezed. "Nah, you an' Luke were never nasty to begin with. A bit out of it, but nothing more. Isn't that right, Sarah Jane?"

The older woman didn't reply, and a glance in the direction of the JARDIS told them why. The Doctor was stalking back to them, his long coat flapping in the breeze, followed by a not inconsiderable number of children. Four of them were assuredly not of the twenty-first century: two boys were in rich clothes that Maria vaguely realised were medieval.

Another, smaller child who could have been either boy or girl was in a night dress affair, and the fourth child was a small boy who was dressed in a sailor outfit. Then there were the children who might be of the future; they seemed to find Earth's sun too bright, and her gravity too heavy. The rest, she was glad to see, were clearly back in their own time.

Maria glanced at Sarah Jane again, and then back to the Doctor. They wore matching expressions that mingled anger, frustration, and weariness.

"Whoops," said Clyde in her ear, and Maria could only shake her head. _What_ had they gotten themselves into this time?


	6. Chapter 6

_**So I changed my mind and decided to make this a new chapter after all. I hope you enjoy the ride.  
**_

* * *

Sarah Jane got to her feet, pulling Ashley up with her. She propelled the boy in the direction of Maria and Clyde, and then turned to face the Doctor and his entourage, her hands on her hips.

"Doctor," she began with what she felt was admirable calmness, "what happens next?"

The Doctor grinned at her. Clearly his short trip inside the JARDIS had defused his anger somewhat. "All sorted. The alien group - that's their leader there, the tall skinny one with the purple ears - aren't actually children. Some of them are young, and granted they appear to be kids in looks and behaviour, but they're adults. So we've agreed that they can take the JARDIS and drive themselves home, so to speak."

Sarah Jane looked dubious. "Won't that create another situation similar to the one we've just had, illegal use of a TARDIS and all that?"

"Not it! I've had a little word with the JARDIS, see, 'cos it knows I'm a Time Lord. Told it to drop them off and no funny business." He looked faintly worried. "Not quite sure what'll happen to it after that. Probably have to go and look for it and then tow it around the universe." His mobile face soured a little at the prospect.

"Are they going now?" Sarah Jane asked, glancing across at the purple-eared one. He bowed to her, his ears flapping gently in the breeze.

"We wished to thank you first, Mistress," the purple-eared one said. "Without you, we would have lost our true selves, and eventually our world."

"I hope you get home safely," Sarah Jane responded, imitating his bow. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the rest of her team doing the same, and she felt a rush of pride in them.

The Doctor clapped a hand on the alien's shoulder. "All ready?" He steered him - her - it - towards the JARDIS. Sarah Jane could hear him talking. "...she'll take you whereever you need to go ... Jenan .... problem.... console ... call me."

"This is all a dream, isn't it?" Ashley said suddenly.

Sarah Jane tore her gaze from the JARDIS and the string of restored aliens who were obediently entering it, each receiving the appropriate farewell gesture from the Doctor. "It isn't a dream for me," she said carefully. "Perhaps it is one for you?"

Ashley nodded and relapsed into silence, but for the first time he seemed to be at peace. Perhaps that's the best way to deal with him, she thought. Give him a sleeping pill and let his parents bring him home and put him in his own bed...

"Isn't it time you lot got a move on?" the Doctor asked as he jogged back to them. In the background she could see the JARDIS fading, its alien cargo on their way home at last. She hoped that the return wouldn't be too difficult for them, that their families and friends would still remember them... Sarah Jane shivered as she recalled her own difficulties after the Doctor left her in Aberdeen all those years ago.

"Where do you want us to go?" Clyde asked, rather aggressively. "And what do we do with this lot?" He waved his hand in the direction of the remaining Jenan victims. At least they were all human now.

"They're from the future," the Doctor informed him. "That's why they're not talking to you, they know they might give something away. I'm gonna go drop them off. Sarah, there's five kids who're also from round here in every sense of the word. I've wiped their memories of all this, so they should be easy enough to sort out. I'll be back in a bit and we'll deal with the rest of 'em." His brown eyes lingered on the four children who were so clearly from the past. They were the most traumatised of all.

Sarah Jane huffed. "Well, don't get lost on your way back, whatever you do," she called after him when he turned to go. "Three hours. Thirteen Bannerman Road. Don't be late!"

The Doctor threw a wounded look at her over his shoulder. "Oh ye of little faith!" he mocked as he ran.

She watched with amusement as he chivvied the future children into the TARDIS, and a moment later he was gone, leaving Sarah Jane in charge of a large group of teenagers and pre-adolescents for the first time in her life. She swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat (there was a reason she'd become a journalist and not a teacher, after all) and took a deep breath. "All right then. Can I have your names please?" She scribbled each name down and then turned to Maria. "Do you know where the nearest police station is?" she murmured.

The girl nodded. "Just round the corner. That's one of the reasons why the built the new school here - the old one was always being vandalised, Anna said."

"OK. Let's walk them round." She turned back to the anxious five. "Don't worry, you're all going to be home soon, we're going to ask the police for help-"

"I live five minutes away," one boy said abruptly. He was blinking as if suddenly roused from a long sleep. "None of us are little kids" - with a scornful glance at the smaller pair of the four temporally displaced children - "I know where the police station is. We can walk 'round ourselves."

"Do you all have mobile phones?" Sarah Jane demanded. The boy had a rather arrogant tone - not as pronounced as that of Ashley's platinum blonde alter ego, but enough to be abrasive.

They indicated that they did, and Sarah Jane and her team waved them off. She would ask the Doctor, later, to check that they all got back safely. "Let's go," she said, using her hands to sweep the remaining crowd in front of her. The smallest child, a little girl of barely three, tripped and began to cry. Sarah Jane bent down and lifted her.

Luke stared at the child. "Why is she crying?"

"She's probably tired, scared and hurt," his mother returned as she shifted the child's weight from one arm to the other and continued in the direction of the car park. She frowned. "There's too many of us," she whispered to Luke. "We can't all fit in the car."

"Clyde and I'll get the Tube back," Maria offered. "I know the way - I've done it before."

"Sure thing, Sarah Jane," Clyde said cheerfully. "We'll wait for you in the attic. Try and kick Mr Smith into life again."

"There'll be no kicking involved!" Sarah Jane retorted. "All right. Off you go. We'll see you soon - and be careful!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know the drill," Clyde grumbled, pulling Maria in what he fondly hoped was the direction of the station. Sarah Jane repressed a smile when she saw Maria stop, grab his arm, and pull him the opposite way, throwing her an exasperated glance as she did so.

"Are we ready? Can we go home now?"

Sarah Jane put one arm across Luke's shoulders. "We're going home." She glanced over at the silent Ashley beside her and her hold tightened. "Your real home."

He grinned up at her, and they went to the car. It was only when Sarah Jane opened it and turned to urge the other three children to follow Luke and Ashley into it that she realised she'd forgotten their situation. They were standing several metres away, the youngest boy - whom she estimated to be four - clinging to the robe of the next youngest. She bit her lip and handed the whimpering child she still carried to Luke in the front seat.

"She won't bite," she murmured when her son recoiled a little. "Just sit in the car and wait. I'll be with you in a moment."

"Come, get into my - my carriage," she called as the approached the other three. "It looks frightening, I know, but it will bring us to my home." She held out her hand and the youngest boy came to take it. She assessed his outfit and realised that he was probably the least displaced of the four.

"That's an auto, ain't it, ma'am?" he asked, his American accent clear.

She bent down. "It is. Tell me, what's your name?"

The little boy looked up. "I'm called Bobby. Can I get inside?" His big blue eyes were fixed on her car, and she smiled. Boys...

"In you get," she urged, indicating the door with her head. Bobby gave her a wide, gap toothed grin before clambering in, and she allowed herself another smile before turning to look at the boys who posed the greatest challenge of all.

"Won't you come with us?" she asked as gently as she could.

"What manner of carriage is this, that has no horses to draw it?" the younger boy asked after a long, difficult pause.

"Dickon!" the elder boy hissed. "We do not know this woman. It is not fit that you should speak to her thus."

His brother - Sarah Jane guessed that they were brothers - glanced up, his eyes dancing. "But I want to see, Ned. She has invited us to enter; I would travel in a horseless carriage, for I think it would be huge sport."

Sarah Jane felt the colour drain from her face. The clothes. The speech. The distinctive red-gold tint of the hair - a colour she had noted several times from a certain painting in the National Portrait Gallery. And the names.

_This is why the Doctor left them here, _she thought numbly. _They can't go back. They're a fixed point in time. _

"Madam?" the younger boy - Dickon - said. "Are you ill, my lady?"

She managed a wavery smile. "No. No, I'm fi- I am well. Come along." She led the way back to the car and pushed the front seat forward. "Step over here, see," she indicated. "And sit down. You will find it comfortable."

Dickon glanced at her and then his small face split in a grin. "I thank you, my lady." He clambered in next to Ashley, who hardly looked at him, and then turned to call to his brother, his eyes wide. "The lady does not lie, Ned! This chair, it is wondrously soft!" He bounced a little.

Sarah Jane turned to see the older boy, Ned, come hesitantly towards her. His eyes were wary. "You are quite safe," she murmured as the boy reached out a tentative hand towards the car and then ran his fingers over the glass-smooth surface.

"This must be some trickery," he breathed. "I have never seen a carriage such as this."

"There is no trickery, I promise you. I know you are confused and afraid, but everything will be explained soon. I promise."

Ned turned too-penetrating eyes on her. "Everything, Madam? There is indeed much that needs to be explained." He continued to examine the car, both inside and out, with his eyes, and in the resulting quiet Sarah Jane could hear the soft murmur as Luke attempted to carry on a conversation with Dickon. At least the younger of the two boys seemed to be handling matters well...

"I have decided," Ned announced in the tone of one making a pronouncement. "I will enter your carriage, Madam, for I confess that my curiosity is stronger than my caution."

Dickon stuck his head towards the still open door. "Cease this foolish prattle, brother, and get _in_! I wish to proceed! Master Luke has told me of wonderful things! And he promises food." He gave Sarah a furtive look. "I am sorry, my lady, but my belly is empty, and I would have it full again."

Sarah Jane felt her lips twitch and she glanced at Ned, who also seemed to be repressing a smile. Their eyes met for a long moment, and then the boy shrugged. "It seems, Madam, that the choice has been made for me. I would not be guilty of the heinous crime of starving my own brother." She saw him take a deep breath and then carefully fold his longer (he was tall, she noted, for the thirteen years she knew he must be) body into the cramped space left next to Dickon. Moving as slowly as she could, she snapped the driver's seat back into place, smiling reassuringly when both Dickon and Ned jumped.

"Come _on_, Mum!" Luke urged, more impatiently than was his wont. He wrinkled his nose. "She's a bit snotty, the baby I mean. I want to give her back to you or Maria."

Sarah Jane laughed and slid into her seat. "Oh, all right. Maria and Clyde should be home now in any case." She glanced at the two boys in the back. "When I start the car - carriage - there will be a lot of noise. Don't be afraid. That's what allows us to move as fast as - as fast as -"

"Faster than a horse can gallop," Luke supplied, doing his best to hold the small girl on his lap away from him.

"Yes. Let's go!" With that, she turned the key and the engine kicked into action. Her eyes kept flicking to her mirror to look at Ned and Dickon in the back seat.

_There truly is strangeness whereever you turn_, she mused as they started to eat up the distance between Hammersmith and Ealing. _But I certainly never expected to have the Princes in the Tower in the back of my car..._


	7. Chapter 7

_**Thanks to adodcefa, Aslook, and Eilonwyn for reviews. Here's the next bit. I've given up on the structure I actually want - I'm posting as I write, but will probably make changes and reorganise before posting in full on **_**Teaspoon**_**. adodcefa, a bit has been put in just for you. **_

* * *

When she opened her front door, Sarah Jane and her carload of children were greeted by the sound of raised voices coming from the direction of the living room.

"That's Maria's mum," Luke whispered unnecessarily.

Sarah Jane nodded; she'd instantly recognised the strident tones of Chrissie Jackson, answered by an obviously frustrated Maria. She glanced at the other children. Ashley looked very tired, she thought, but apart from that they all seemed well. Ned still seemed distrustful, but Dickon's blue eyes were eagerly scanning everything in her large front hall. Bobby was unperturbed, and the toddler in Luke's arms was in fact more than half asleep.

"You'd better bring them all upstairs while I deal with this," she told Luke in a low tone. "Give me the baby; I can deal with her, but-"

Too late. Their entry had been overheard.

"Oh, here she is now, the child-snatching madwoman," Chrissie said, her voice magnified and made shriller than usual by the smooth hard surfaces of the hall. "Find more kids lying around without parents, Mary-Jane?"

Sarah Jane gave the other woman the sweetest smile she could manage as Luke propelled Ashley up the stairs, followed rapidly by the princes. "Actually, Chrissie, Luke does have other friends his own age besides Maria and Clyde, and they're all coming round for some computer game tournament. Isn't that right, Clyde?"

Clyde liked to play the fool, but he was sharp. He caught on at once. "Oh yeah. I was just on my way into the kitchen to grab some food when _they_ came." He glared at the still indignant Chrissie and her unfortunate ex-husband, who was standing behind her and looking mortified.

"No, Clyde; I'll sort out your food. You'll make a mess. Run on up to the others," Sarah Jane told him. "Here, take my - nephew - with you." She pushed Bobby over to him gently, hoping that Chrissie would have missed her slight fumbling.

"Nephew, is it?" Chrissie huffed as Clyde whipped Bobby up the stairs. "And I suppose this one is your niece?" She nodded at the three year old on Sarah Jane's hip.

"Mum, you're making a fool of yourself," Maria said furiously. "She'd hardly _lie_ about having relatives, would she? That's where we were, if you must know. We were collecting the boys, and then going to get these two."

"But -" spluttered Chrissie.

"That's enough," Alan Jackson said wearily. "Put it down to a misunderstanding, eh?" His eyes telegraphed _sorry_. "Come on. I'll give you a cuppa and then you can head on. I'm sure you have things to do. Maria, love, I'll see you later. Don't be too long." He kissed his daughter on the cheek and then firmly pushed his ex-wife out the front door.

Sarah Jane looked at Maria as the front door closed. The girl was still standing tensely, as if ready for battle. She held out an arm in invitation. "Come here."

Maria paused long enough for Sarah Jane to see that her eyes were shiny, but then she threw herself into the half embrace, heedful of the toddler. "I'm so sorry, so sorry," she whispered into Sarah Jane's ear. "She's really not that awful, _honestly_, it's just something about me going about with you she doesn't like, and this, all of this, it's all been her fault. If she hadn't called the police..."

Sarah Jane stiffened. _So that's who told the police about Luke_, she thought sadly. "It's all right," she said gently, lifting one hand to caress the dark dishevelled head on her shoulder. "Shh. It's all right. We got Luke back, didn't we? And Ashley. We even managed to pick up bonus points by saving a whole gang of kids, plus the universe! Isn't that a good innings for one day?"

Maria sniffed and giggled and sniffed again before pulling back. "Well, when you put it like _that_ -"

"Exactly. So no more tears. We're strong women, aren't we? We can handle anything. Your mum worries about you, that's natural, and it's probably hard for her to not be living with you all the time and she's over-compensating. It's just that she loves you so much."

"I wish she wouldn't show it by being mean to you," Maria returned wistfully. "She's really kind of sweet, my mum, and I'd like it if she'd at least try and be friendly, 'cos you and Clyde and Luke are all my best friends and - and, I don't want her thinking you're all weird."

Sarah Jane laughed and put her free arm around the girl's shoulders. "Oh, come on. Let's call a spade a spade. We _are_ weird, and that's a _good_ thing! Variety is the spice of life. On that note, I suggest you run into the kitchen and grab the bumper bag of crisps from the larder. Then we can find out what those boys are doing to my attic."

Maria grinned and obeyed. Sarah Jane had one hand on the banister and was about start up the stairs when her front door slammed open again and the Doctor bounced in, all wide grins and fresh air and hair on end.

"That was quick," she said.

He waved a casual hand in dismissal, shutting the door behind him with a kick. "Ah, it was nothing. All done now. Hey, are those for me? Ta!" He grabbed the bumper bag of crisps from Maria when she came back into the hall, opened them, and began munching.

Maria glared at him. "Oi, those aren't for you! Those are for the boys!"

"Ooops." Sheepishly, he handed the packet back to her and she snatched it before turning on her heel and bounding up first the house and then the attic stairs, easily taking three at a time.

Sarah Jane sighed. "I wish they wouldn't do that. It makes me feel old."

The Doctor took her arm and grinned down at her. "Nonsense. You haven't changed a bit, my Sarah Jane." He grinned down at the sleepy little girl and removed her from Sarah Jane's arms, before grabbing her hand. "Come on!" And he pulled her up the stairs at a rate that left her laughing and breathless.

They paused outside the attic door. "See? Told you. Oooh. Sounds like there's a right barney going on in there!"

Sarah Jane rolled her eyes at him, pushed the door open, and stepped into the room. She gasped at what she saw.

Maria was hiding in one corner, her eyes wide, holding firmly onto Bobby. Luke seemed to be caught between trying to keep Dickon with Maria, and calling out instructions to Clyde. And Clyde... well, Clyde was fighting, rather desperately, from the looks of it, with Ned. With swords. Particularly thin, sharp pointy swords at that.

Sarah Jane found that her throat refused to form any sound. The Doctor, however, was not similarly affected. He dumped the three year old with Maria and then strode across the floor to grab Clyde back. "That's the wrong hold, see, you do it this way-"

"Doctor!"

"You're supposed to _stop_ them!" Maria shrieked from her corner. The youngest pair began to cry.

"How did this happen?" Sarah Jane demanded of Luke, who only shrugged, his dark eyes fixed widely on the group in the middle of the floor.

"-ah, give me that sword," the Doctor was saying, apparently frustrated. Clyde, Sarah Jane noted, was only too happy to obey.

"_Hah!_" crowed the Doctor as whipped around to face Ned. "Let's see how you fare against a real swordsman and his fighting hand!" The blades flashed - once - twice - a clang - a clatter - and Ned was panting and disarmed.

The Doctor used his own sword to impale the other and slide it towards him. "Here," he said to Luke, handing both swords to him. Sarah Jane tutted quietly to herself and rescued them before her innocent and overly-curious son was inspired to investigate them further.

She turned and glared on the assembly. "Would someone like to explain?"

Clyde and Ned exchanged glanced and shuffled their feet awkwardly.

"Ned and Dickon were looking at your stuff," Luke said when the silence threatened to become uncomfortable. His eyes were fixed trustingly on hers. "I said not to, because you don't like it. And then Clyde tried to stop Ned from investigating the cube that Verron soothsayer gave you, because it was dangerous - and then Ned grabbed those two old swords you had and they started fighting." He paused and looked thoughtful. "Can you teach me to do that disarming trick, Doctor, because it looked like a good-"

"No!" Sarah Jane said firmly, cutting the Doctor off before he could speak. "Luke, you can certainly learn to fence if you really want to, but _not_ from the Doctor." She turned her glare on her old friend, who simply looked injured. "Ned, please remember that swords are not to be used to settle disputes. Do you understand?"

For the first time, Ned reacted like any normal thirteen year old. He looked sulky, but agreed.

Sarah Jane turned to Dickon. "And you?"

The younger boy nodded, his eyes so large that she had to struggle to keep a straight face. She nodded in satisfaction. "Clyde, I'll let it go this time since I suppose you were acting in self-defence, but don't let it happen again. Maria, what did you do with those crisps?"

Maria looked guilty, and a little voice piped up, "I ate 'em all, Miss!"

The atmosphere was lightened as everyone laughed. Bobby was so patently pleased with himself it was hard not to be amused. Sarah Jane's smile faded quickly as she realised that she still hadn't heard from the sixth member of the teenage sextet. "Ashley, where's Ashley?"

"He's sleeping on the sofa next to Mr Smith," Luke told her. She nodded her thanks to him and went to bend over the prone boy, her fingers brushing the features that were so like and yet not those of her son.

"He's exhausted, Doctor," she whispered.

She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Sleep is the best thing for him, Sarah. In fact, if I may I'll carry him to your spare bedroom, if you have one, and we'll leave him. You should phone his parents sooner rather than later. He needs to return to his normal life as soon as possible."

She nodded and stepped back, allowing the Doctor to swing the boy up and carry him downstairs, hopefully without tripping himself up on the narrow attic flight. She sighed and fished out her mobile, using a finger to flick the clamshell open. "Well, here goes!"

She was aware of the anxious eyes of Luke, Maria and Clyde as she made her call, and the astonished and bemused ones of Ned and Dickon. The youngest pair had, like Ashley, finally succumbed to excitement and exhausted and sleeping together like puppies, in a tumbled little heap.

She finished her call and snapped the phone shut just as the Doctor came back in.

"They'll be here within the hour," she told him. "What will I tell them?"

Maria scowled. "You're not telling them anything, Sarah Jane -"

She looked at the girl. "Maria, I appreciate your concern, really I do, but in this case it's not necessary. Nothing is going to happen, do you understand me? What happened this morning was a - an aberration-"

"I dunno, Sarah Jane. They're weird people, aren't they? I mean, what kind of parent gives their son a name like Ashley? How uncool is that? It's a _girl's_ name!"

"Actually, Clyde, it's an androgenous name," Sarah Jane corrected.

"What's that?"

"It means either a girl or boy can have it," Luke explained patiently.

Clyde folded his arms. "No matter. They're still weird."

Maria rolled her eyes. "What do you think they are, Slitheen?"

"Hey, you don't think they are, are they?" Clyde looked at Sarah Jane. "I don't know about you, but I'd rather like to explode them with some vinegar -"

The Doctor's grin went from ear to ear. "I see I don't need to worry about you any more, Sarah, you've got this crowd to look after you, and I see they're doing a pretty good job -"

Sarah Jane's eyes narrowed. "Oh, _thank_ you for your concern, Doctor. Do I need to remind you that I've been perfectly capable of looking after myself for the last thirty years? I'm not the girl you dumped in Aberdeen back then, _and_ I'm not past my sell by date either, you three. So since _I_ told the Staffords I'd get their son back, _I_ will make sure he returns to them. _Alone_. Got it?" They nodded. "Good. Doctor, while we're waiting, it's time for you to answer a few questions."


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor wrinkled his nose and ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that Sarah Jane found reminiscent of his fourth self. "Er, well -"

"Perhaps if we sit down?" she suggested, her tone implacable.

The Doctor puffed out a breath of air and looked resigned. "I suppose so. C'mon, you lot. May as well get comfortable - and don't wake the babies, whatever you do." The last words were spoken with more than a tinge of sarcasm as he sank into one of the ancient armchairs that sat across from the equally ancient red leather sofa.

Sarah Jane glanced over at the two youngest, curled up together like a pair of puppies under the chaise longue. "No fear of that, Doctor, they're out for the count." She seated herself and patted the free spaces beside her. "Sit down, all of you. It's not every day you get to pin down a Time Lord, you know."

Luke came to perch on the arm of the sofa on her right side, whilst Maria curled up on her left. More tentatively, Dickon took the space on Maria's other side, while Ned, looking questioningly at Sarah Jane, took the cushion his brother offered and carefully desposited himself on it on the floor. Clyde did the same, albeit with more confidence.

Sarah Jane raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. "Well? It looks like we're ready and waiting."

The Doctor folded his hands over his suited stomach and gazed meditatively into space. "What do you want to know?"

The floodgates opened and everyone began to talk at once.

"What happened to those aliens?" Maria started. "Why did they take us? Did you kill them?"

"How did the sparkly Warp Star thing do it?" Clyde asked.

"What exactly happened to Ashley?" Luke wanted to know. "And what about them?" he added, jerking his head towards Ned and Dickon.

Sarah Jane bit her lip as she glanced at the princes. Their eyes were growing wider and wider. _We should have explained to them first_, she thought anxiously. _This is all going to be too much... _

"May we not stay here, my lord Doctor?" Dickon put in, prompting Sarah to hide her grin at this form of address. "Truly, I like this world of wonders."

The others fell silent. Ned turned to glare at his brother. "Be not such a fool! How can we stay here? Somehow, we have stumbled here... We must go back. Go home. There are things we must do there, Dickon!" His voice became urgent and quiet, and Sarah Jane had to strain to hear it. "We must seek to treat with those who are unhappy with Uncle Dickon's actions. Someone must be found who will-"

"That won't be possible," the Doctor said sadly. His eyes were filled with a compassion that Sarah Jane knew meant there would be no compromise on this point. "You'll have to stay here, I'm afraid. You can't go home."

"My lord Doctor, I must! I have a duty to my father and my kingdom!"

Sarah Jane heard Maria gasp. Luke cocked his head on one side. "Why does he talk like that?" he asked interestedly. "That's not very cool, is it, Clyde?"

The Doctor ignored him. His whole attention was focused on the thirteen year old opposite him. "Ned, you _can't_ go back. You see, your disappearance - yours and Dickon's - becomes part of history. Clyde, Maria, Sarah Jane - they all learned about you in school. The boy king and his brother who disappear so mysteriously... I can't let you go back because if you do, it would disrupt a number of complex time streams that are about to converge. The past would be irrevocably altered."

"Er, excuse me," Clyde said, unusually nervously for him, "but I must've heard you wrong. Did you say he was a boy king? And his brother? Who disappeared?"

"He did," Maria said. Her eyes were fixed on the Doctor's face. "It's incredible," she breathed. "We did it last term in History. The lost princes... That's who you are, aren't you? Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York..."

"No _way_!"

"Are they going to live with us, Mum?" Luke asked. "Like the Doctor said, they can't go back. They can't go anywhere else, unless the Doctor takes them." He smiled the innocent childlike smile Sarah Jane had come to love. "They're like me now. They don't fit anywhere except here."

There was a long, awkward silence, broken only by the loud ticking of the grandfather clock near the door and the rhythmic snores of the sleeping children at the other end of the room.

Sarah Jane sighed quietly and allowed her head to fall back against the sofa. She closed her eyes, but even then she could feel the collected force of six gazes directed her way. "Doctor?" It was almost a plea.

"He's right, Sarah," the Doctor said gravely. "They could come with me, but you know the kind of life I lead. They'd be better off with you."

"I am nearly a man grown, I can fend for myself, and my brother too!" Ned objected hotly. "I am - I was - King of England. I accept charity from none."

"This isn't charity, it's common sense," the Doctor retorted. "This is twenty-first century England, boys. The world has changed beyond your ken. There's no way I could leave you adrift. Two hundred years ago, maybe, at a pinch. But not now."

Sarah Jane felt a touch on her knee and looked down into the anxious face of young Dickon. "Please, my lady, let us stay. I will never trouble you, I swear it, and Ned and I are accomplished in many things. Mayhap we can help with the hunt; only last year I took down my first deer..."

Clyde guffawed and Maria hissed, "Don't!", but Dickon didn't seem to care.

Sarah Jane forced a smile. "Oh Dickon, it's not that..." She looked from him to Ned, whose straight back screamed pride and defiance and perhaps a little fear, and then at Luke. "What do you think?" she asked, putting some jollility into her tone. "How do you like gaining two brothers in one day?"

Luke's glowing smile said it all, and she sighed and let her head fall back again. "I must be mad, at my age," she muttered under her breath. "It's hard enough bringing up one teenage boy, let alone three..." She looked up again. "All right, boys. Unless you have any violent, unconquerable objections, you're staying here. Welcome to the family."

Dickon and Luke exchanged shy grins of matching delight. Maria sniffed. Clyde smacked Ned's stiff back in congratulations, and the Doctor beamed. "Brilliant! That's that sorted then." He made to move.

His former companion glared. "Doctor, sit. We haven't finished. Let's take Luke's original question next. How did Ashley get involved in all of this?"

The Doctor looked surprised. "I'd've thought that was obvious, Sarah Jane. Didn't you say he was kidnapped by the Bane to use as a model for a container for their synthesised DNA?"

"We didn't say it, we guessed it," Clyde snapped with a glance towards Luke, who was looking puzzled, if less stunned than Ned and Dickon.

"There you are then. See, the Jenan don't reproduce - ah, er, expand the species - like humans do. Or a number of others, for that matter. Or - well, never mind. Anyway. They used to, but they began to have serious population issues a couple of centuries ago, so some bright spark lit on the idea of using their transdimensional abilities to recruit new members, as it were."

"By force?" Maria asked with a small shiver.

"No, actually. They were pretty firm on that point. Becoming a Jeni was strictly voluntary, and before the Time War started it was something that quite a few people on quite a few worlds aspired to. They only took the brightest, you see, and in return for your agreement you got something very like eternal life. What wasn't to like?"

"How did they do that?" Luke asked, leaning forward in his curiosity.

"I think they used this," Ned said quietly, fishing a blackened stone from under the collar of his tunic. "I know not how; only that this was the last thing I saw..."

Clyde frowned. "Hang on a sec. Isn't that one of those Warp Star gizmos? Is that what turns you Jeni?" He turned to look at Maria. "Hey, did you and Luke get one of those?"

Luke shook his head. "No." He stared at the dead stone hanging from Ned's fingers. "All I remember is someone stopping me when I crept out of the Staffords' this morning. I was trying to sneak out. He said he was going to take me home." He looked at Sarah Jane. "I thought he was going to bring me here, Mum."

She patted his arm. "Remind me to have a chat with you about talking to strangers."

"Again," Clyde huffed. "You'd think he'd've learned after the freaky nuns thing."

"But what about Ashley?" Luke asked again, being nothing if not persistent.

"You're certainly your mother's son," the Doctor commented with a grin. "You ask too many questions. And yes," as Luke opened his mouth, "I'm going to tell you what I think, OK?"

"_Finally_," Sarah Jane murmured.

"Right. OK then. Explanations. Yes. Oooh, I think I'll put me specs on. They make me feel all professorial, see. Makes it easier to do this stuff." The Doctor extracted a pair of dark rimmed glasses from his coat pocket, and settled them carefully on his nose. "I think you're right. Luke's physical appearance is cloned from Ashley's, but the Bane filled the case with the synthesised DNA you've been telling me about. But the Bane are like all species who're primarily motivated by their stomachs. They were so focused on their primary objective that for once they neglected to think of something to do with Ashley once they'd finished with him."

"They must have kidnapped Ashley when he visited the factory, like they did with Kelsey, remember?" Maria turned to look at Sarah Jane. "And used him, and then left him... At least they didn't kill him."

"He was very lucky," the Doctor agreed. "The Bane are not known for strategy, but they _are_ known for their single minded determination, and they're like the Slitheen in that they rarely leave any pickings behind."

"Ew," said Clyde.

"My lord, pray explain. What is this of which you speak? Are these enemies of England?" Sarah Jane could not blame Ned for his confusion.

"Nah, the world," Clyde said. "Just zip it for the minute and we'll explain later, OK? It'll take too long to do now." He was silent for a moment, then, "Doctor, do you think the Jenan knew what the Bane were up to?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Hard to tell. I'm a Time Lord, not a mystic, no matter what some folk may think. They might have done and thought that -" He glanced at Luke and stopped.

"So you're saying it was all my fault the Jenan came here," Luke concluded. "If they knew what the Bane were up to, they knew about the Archetype - me. And you've said that they only want the brightest. I am - everyone." Sarah Jane stretched out a hand to take his, but her son did not respond to her reassuring squeeze. "They must've known about the Archetype and came too early, before I was activated. Or maybe they thought Ashley was me. It's always _my_ fault!"

"Luke-" Sarah Jane began, but the Doctor's voice interrupted her.

"Hold off on the teenage angst for a moment, Luke. This is all speculation, remember? It's _possible_. It's also possible that the Jenan were operating from some other motive. Maybe it wasn't you they wanted - maybe they wanted the Bane's cloning technology. That'd've solved more of their problems that simply taking you."

Sarah Jane flashed him a quick look of gratitude as she felt some of the tension leave her son's body. "That would certainly explain why they took Luke when they realised what had happened," she said thoughtfully. "If they had both the technology and the Archetype - win-win situation for them, really."

"Are they really all dead?" Maria asked, sounding worried. "I mean, I know we're speculating, but if any of this is true, it's scary stuff. They could combine Bane technology and their own to make some sort of-of super Jeni, couldn't they?"

"They can't, though, can they?" the Doctor told her. "There was only one true-born Jeni on the JARDIS, which means there's no-one left to take anything back. I'm tempted to think he only came to maturity very recently. They have a long incubation period, which was one of their problems. Only a small number of true-born Jenan survived the Time War, and my guess is that they were so embittered and angry and determined to rebuild that they allowed their dark side to override centuries of ethics and belief about free will and choice."

"But if the true born Jeni was against the kidnapping, how could it happen if there was just him?" Maria protested.

"I imagine there was a second Jeni on the JARDIS along with Sarah's friend who was responsible for altering Ashley. Something must have gone wrong with the procedure ... and we ended up with a JARDIS carrying one immature Jeni, a second, mature one, who may have been dying or was killed, and a newly recruited Jeni who was even angrier and more revengeful than the other one!"

"And that's why Ashley is so much more upset by the whole thing than the rest of us," Luke finished. "How can we help him?"

The Doctor cocked his head on one side. "Speak of the devil. Sarah, I think I hear your doorbell. Going back to normal is the best thing for him."

Sarah Jane took a deep breath and rose, her hands smoothing her waistcoat over her hips. "OK then. Time to return Ashley to his mum and dad." She put one hand on Maria's shoulder and brushed the other across Luke's cheek. "I'll be back soon."

"I put him in your sitting room downstairs," she heard the Doctor call as she began to descend the stairs. "Thought that'd be easier."

She shouted back her thanks and ran lightly down the stairs and into the living room. Sure enough, Ashley was lying fast asleep on her sofa with a light blanket thrown over him. After a cursory check around the room and a quick glance at the mirror (her hair was a bit wild, and the bruise on her cheekbone was looking decidedly pink, but given the circumstances...) she went to the front door.

The Staffords practically fell into her hall. "You've found him?"

*

Sarah Jane took a moment to be grateful that she lived in a house that was large. At least any noise made by the gang up in the attic should be covered by the fact that the said attic was two storeys above. She closed her door and stepped back.

"He's in the living room, sleeping," she said softly, mindful of the Doctor's injunction. "He fell asleep very soon after I got him here. I had a - doctor - over to check he hadn't been drugged or anything of the kind, and he's clear." She crossed the fingers of one hand behind her back. Technically, it was true...

Mrs Stafford looked tearful. "Oh, Miss Smith, I don't know how we can ever thank you -"

Involuntarily, Sarah Jane rubbed one of the sore patches from the morning and the woman blushed fiery red. Her husband put his hand on her shoulder, and Sarah Jane winced a little under his considering gaze. She turned to open the door of the living room. "He's in here. I don't think we should wake him, if it can be avoided. The doctor advises that you should, if possible, bring him straight home and put him into his own bed. Returning to his normal routine is the best thing possible."

Mr Stafford gave her another of those considering gazes. "Rather difficult when most of his routine in the past six months has taken place here, with you," he observed. "Why didn't you simply put him to bed in the room I'm sure he had here?"

Sarah Jane kept her face still and her voice even. "I'm not his parent. He doesn't belong with me, as you made very clear last week and then again this morning."

Mrs Stafford wasn't listening to them, she saw. Already the other woman had pushed past her and into the living room where she knelt beside her son and gave vent to a muffled sob. Mr Stafford brushed past Sarah Jane and sat on the arm of the sofa, at his son's head.

"He looks thinner," the boy's mother sniffed. "How can he have lost so much weight in such a short time?"

Sarah Jane refused to flinch. "Perhaps you're just noticing more now," she suggested.

"Come on, love. Let's get him home," Mr Stafford said. He scooped his son up in his arms, and Sarah Jane held her breath, but Ashley never stirred. "Thanks for returning our son to us, Miss Smith," he said, not without some irony. "We'll let you know if there are further - problems." The look that accompanied the words was both a promise and a threat, and Sarah Jane forced herself not to respond visibly. What could he do, after all?

She escorted them to the front door. Mrs Stafford suddenly looked at her. "What do we do if - if there's something wrong with him?"

"He's only been gone for a day, honey," her husband reminded her. "What could have happened in a day?" He went to put his son carefully into the back of his car.

Mrs Stafford nodded, rather shakily. "Yes, of course. How silly of me." She held out her hand to Sarah Jane. "I never thought I'd end this day doing this..."

Sarah Jane forced a smile to her lips and shook the proffered hand. "I love him too," she said. _Not this boy, but the one upstairs... _"I only want what's best for him. Let me know if I can help in the future."

Mr Stafford came forward and took her hand, but his grasp was tight to the point of pain. "Oh, we will, Miss Smith, I assure you. We most definitely will." Without a further word or look, he ushered his wife into their car and they drove off. Sarah Jane to wrapped her arms around herself, feeling more than a little chilled.

_I don't think I've seen the last of them_, she thought, troubled, as the car vanished from sight. But there was nothing she could do about it now. She'd fulfilled her task, and found both her lost son as well as the Staffords'. And her own son was waiting for her upstairs, needing her. She closed the door with more vim than she'd intended and ran up to the attic, where she hovered for a moment in the doorway.

The Doctor was sitting on the sofa, waving something. She thought it was his sonic screwdriver, and was that Luke's mobile? She frowned a little. The teenagers clustered around him eagerly, even Ned and Dickon. She found herself wondering what he'd told them, for surely all this technology must seem like magic to them. She glanced for a moment at the other end of the room where the two youngest were still sleeping sweetly and smiled. She knew without the Doctor having to tell her that he would (somehow) find new homes and families for them, and then no doubt he would collect whichever companion he was currently taking a short break from and go back to his own travels. And she...

"Mum!"

She smiled at Luke, smiled at all of them. "It's done. Ashley Stafford is back with his mum and dad."

Luke's brows contracted. "Will he be OK?" he asked anxiously. It was clear he felt some sense of responsibility to the other boy.

Sarah Jane crossed to the sofa, to where he still perched on the end, and put her arm around him. "We don't know how much memory he has of the past six months," she reminded him softly. "From what he said, he had very little, and it may not be hard to persuade him to believe it was all a dream."

The Doctor's jaw hardened a little. "I made sure of it when I took the boy downstairs."

Maria's eyes opened widely. "You mean you modified his memory?" She sounded rather horrified.

The Doctor did not flinch. "I hated doing it, but sometimes it's necessary. He'll still have mood swings, I'm afraid, but if they take him to a professional, the boy will simply be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is as good an explanation as any."

He shrugged, and Sarah Jane shivered. Now she _knew_ she'd be hearing from the Staffords again, and she'd better start rehearsing ideas to deal with them. The Doctor's nonchalance reminded her strongly that this beloved friend was not human, but she was, and she was certain that the fallout from this episode would not be as minimal as some of her other encounters with the extraterrestial. She tightened her hold on Luke, and closed her eyes a little when she felt her son lean in to her.

"What do we do now?" Dickon asked into the sudden silence that had descended.

Sarah Jane smiled across at him and reached out a tentative hand to ruffle his red-gold locks. "I think we'll need to show you and Ned your new rooms."

Dickon looked surprised and then pleased. "Do you mean, my lady, that I will have a suite to myself? That is luxury indeed!"

Maria giggled. "Not a suite, Dickon, it's not a - a palace! Just one room. But one for you, and one for Ned. This house is big enough for that, isn't it, Sarah Jane?"

"Definitely. It's like the TARDIS, this house. Bigger on the inside." She smiled at the girl.

Dickon looked satisfied, but Sarah Jane cast a look at his older brother. He was very quiet. "Ned?"

The boy who had once been Edward V glanced up at her. "That will suit us well, my lady. I thank you." His eyes seemed rather flat, and she repressed a sigh. Clearly, this boy would need her in the coming weeks and months as he adjusted to life in the twenty first century.

"That's another thing," Clyde said. "We have to do somethin' about your names. You can't possibly be Ned and Dickon. You'll be laughed out of existence."

Ned said nothing but Dickon looked curious. "What, then, would you suggest, sir?"

Maria and Luke snickered, but Clyde positively preened. "See? That's appreciation, that is!" He basked in it a moment longer. "H'mm. Ned could be Ed, I guess. And you, you'll have to be Rick, I think."

"I have to agree on that one," Maria said with a straight face. "Anything beginning with 'Dick' is a bad idea."

The Doctor clapped a hand over his mouth. Sarah Jane glared at him. "Maria!"

"Why is it bad?" Luke asked. A glance at Dickon showed that the younger boy shared his curiosity and Sarah Jane groaned. What had she let herself in for?

Clyde clapped a hand on both boys' backs and grinned. "Worry not, my friends. Encylopedia Clydicanna will come to the rescue. Later."

Sarah Jane raised an eyebrow at him. "I heard that."

"You were meant to, Sarah Jane."

"And on that note, I think I'll collect the babes and go," the Doctor interjected, gathering the smallest pair of children into his arms in one go, as if they were a litter of kittens. He stopped at the door and swung back and beamed at them. "You know what? You're brilliant. All of you. You're brilliant." And with that he was gone.

Sarah Jane sighed and then smiled. Always before, his leaving had been accompanied with some level of heartbreak. Not now. They were a family, she and this raggle-taggle gang of teenagers. There'd be more trouble ahead, she was sure of it, but they would face it together. Questions still remained, issues unaddressed, but they'd deal with it.

She found herself thinking of the words of the first verse of _Amazing Grace_, one of the few hymns Aunt Lavinia had actually liked. _I once was lost but now am found _... they'd all been lost, in their different ways, she and this gang of hers, but now, together, they were found.

_The End...?_

_**I know I've left a lot hanging and dangling. There is a reason for this. A sequel is percolating in my brain, and I'd like to carry some of those loose threads over. However, if people really aren't interested in reading a second story, just say and I'll fill out this one so that it's more complete, as it were.**_

_**Thank you for reading and reviewing!**_


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